


you don't want me darling let me know (just say goodbye and I'll go)

by elegantwings



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Apologies, BAMF Jaskier | Dandelion, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Do Not, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Fantasy Racism, Grief/Mourning, Hand Jobs, Is Jaskier competent or just lucky WHO KNOWS, It's impossible, Jaskier Geralt and Yennefer co-parent Ciri: change my mind, Jaskier is a slut ready for danger, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg Friendship, Jaskier | Dandelion Wears Makeup, Jaskier | Dandelion is a Noble, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Actually Unrequited Love, One part Character Study, Oxenfurt Academy (The Witcher), Past Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Self-Worth Issues, Slow Burn, Spy Jaskier | Dandelion, They're friends with benefits, Yennefer gives Jaskier and Geralt a brain cell and hopes for the best, a taste of huddling for warmth as a treat, and he's so pretty Geralt can't stand it, brief Jaskier/Valdo Marx, give Valdo Marx a break he is trying really hard, let grown men cry 2020, lucky for Geralt two can play at that game, not a lot of smut all things considered but these boys have filthy mouths, not explicit, one part adventure, seducing the enemy for information, until chapter 3 at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:00:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25830973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elegantwings/pseuds/elegantwings
Summary: Then he starts to get angry, when his former companions are far, far behind him, when his chemise is soaked because he keeps pulling it up to wipe his face. Jaskier’s songs are known up and down the continent, even the ones that have nothing to do with Geralt or his stupid mage. And so the queen of Cintra won’t allow him to perform in her kingdom, he’s welcome at dozens of other prestigious courts. Every time his mail catches up to him, there’s several invitations to take up residence at one of those such courts, and he’s always declined them, because he’s been an absolute, lovesick idiot content to throw away his best years because he thought if he wasn’t loved, at least he was respected.***A reflection on the reasons why Jaskier travels with Geralt, and then why he doesn't anymore. And then, in a twist of fate that he should have seen coming, why he leaves his comfortable new life to chase after the Witcher again.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 48
Kudos: 356
Collections: Abby's Witcher Collection, The Witcher Alternate Universes





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title - Save My Life by ZZ Ward
> 
> This is not a fix-it fic! It's definitely an an apology fic, and a "what happens next" fic. It started out as a character study of Jaskier and took on a life of it's own. Features BAMF!Jaskier heavily. I know that's not everyone's cup of tea, but he's not a secret warrior...more like, accidentally competent more often than not, and the rest of the time he's like a wet cat out for vengeance. 
> 
> Story is finished and in the editing process. Tags will be updated as necessary. Rating is for the last chapter.

Prologue

Jaskier cries for the entire journey back down the mountain. After Geralt tells him he’s good for nothing but shoveling shit, nevermind that Geralt provides both the shovel and the shit, Jaskier feels like someone had hit him over the head with a frying pan. Like he’s been struck by lightning. Unexpected and undeserved. Twenty years, and Geralt really, truly meant it every time he said Jaskier wasn’t his friend. 

So Jaskier cries, like he hasn’t since he was a boy, the kind of tears that don’t stop, flowing right from the empty miserable pit in his chest for all the world to see. It’s not like he never cries. He’s easily moved to tears by a well written ballad, or a well acted tragedy, or a comedy, or really, pretty much every performance he’s ever attended. It’s nothing like this, this abject grief that he can’t turn off. He marches past the crew of dwarves, and when he sees Borch and his guardians, he bites his tongue as much as he wants to ask why they’re walking when Borch can literally fucking fly. Because his throat feels swollen and sore, and he knows his voice would come out thready and hoarse. Because he still can’t stop the hot, wet flow down his cheeks and it’s shameful how much time he’s wasted. 

Then he starts to get angry, when his former companions are far, far behind him, when his chemise is soaked because he keeps pulling it up to wipe his face. Jaskier’s songs are known up and down the continent, even the ones that have nothing to do with Geralt or his stupid mage. And so the queen of Cintra won’t allow him to perform in her kingdom, he’s welcome at dozens of other prestigious courts. Every time his mail catches up to him, there’s several invitations to take up residence at one of those such courts, and he’s always declined them, because he’s been an absolute, lovesick idiot content to throw away his best years because he thought if he wasn’t loved, at least he was respected. 

Jaskier stops suddenly and kicks the nearest tree. His boots, the ones Geralt had insisted he buy, sturdier, made for travel, absorb most of the impact. “Fuck,” he shouts, kicking at the tree again. He has no idea if Geralt can hear him, and he hopes he does. “Fuck you, Geralt!” His voice is, as he suspected, strained, painful. He sinks to his feet at the base of the tree and leans his forehead against it. “Fuck,” he mutters. 

The tears, eventually, dry up, and the hole in his chest starts to fill with hot embers. He’s always been accused of having a quick temper, and he gives in to it now, and smiles wider, and flirts harder. He does not sing one single god damn song about the White Wolf, because he doesn’t have to, he’s been writing songs since before he even knew what a witcher was. And when he plays Her Sweet Kiss for the first time, he feeds the ash it leaves in his mouth to the fire in his chest, and he does not cry, he doesn’t, although he comes so terribly close. 

1.

Jaskier thought, at first, that as more time passed, the less of it he’d spend with Geralt. And there have certainly been stretches of a year or more that they’ve spent apart. But more often than not, when the winter term ends, and the ground begins to thaw, Geralt appears outside of Jaskier’s modest house. 

Technically Jaskier has a flat as well, one of the perks of teaching at the University. Despite his erratic schedule, his classes always filled up faster than anyone else's, so the administration keeps the space empty for him. As a bonus, it makes a great place to hide from the latest person he’d pissed off. Jaskier never gave Geralt the address, but he found it on his own all the same, and sometimes, he shows up unexpectedly there, too. 

It would always start with Geralt pretending he came to Oxenfurt on a contract, as if Jaskier wouldn’t know if something was terrorizing his literal home. Monsters almost never come this close to the coast, unless they’re the result of a student’s experiment gone wrong. Jaskier would lie when he saw Geralt, say he was actually just finished packing to head out of town tomorrow, in whatever direction Geralt was already going. Sometimes, the spring semester was already a few weeks in. Geralt would lie and act like he didn't want Jaskier to come with him, as if he’d wandered onto his doorstep or to his secret other home completely by accident. 

It kept happening, year after year, and Jaskier kept playing the game. Perhaps because it was a lark of it’s own to see Geralt playing at anything at all. As if Geralt, who could crush a bandit’s head between one large hand (Jaskier has seen it), could be afraid of someone like Jaskier. 

At first, Jaskier mistook the fear for embarrassment. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d fallen in love with someone who couldn’t stand to be seen with him in public. Jaskier has learned to appreciate himself for where he’s gotten in life, but he can admit that he can be too loud and too much. He’d been too much for his parents, which is why he did them a favor and left. Because Jaskier knows he is a gods damned delight, and anyone who thinks otherwise can get fucked. 

So he’s really happy that Geralt doesn’t find him embarrassing. There’s proof enough in the way he threatens anyone who even looks at Jaskier the wrong way. At the same time, Geralt hardly looks at Jaskier at all. He’s always making sure there’s several centimeters between them at all times. Sleeping on the floor every time the bed’s too small to share comfortably. Forgoing a blanket if the night is cold, and piling it on Jaskier instead. But never sharing his body heat. 

Some nights, Jaskier and Geralt joke and laugh together, and Jaskier plays bits of his new songs, even the ones about Geralt, and Geralt’s lips twitch with the barest ghost of a smile. And other nights, they've been getting along so well, and then Geralt will get cold and mean, and leave Jaskier behind at the next town. He probably thinks Jaskier doesn’t know he’s going to leave, but Jaskier does know, every time, and lets it happen. If Geralt doesn’t want him around, then he won’t be around. Let him throw a tantrum to an audience of none. 

Geralt’s not embarrassed by Jaskier, but maybe he’s a little afraid of him. It becomes clear when  
Geralt has a little more money than usual, and spends a little extra on a pair of leather gloves that he doesn’t strictly need. Jaskier keeps catching Geralt staring at the gloves on his hands, the sour frown on his face continuing to grow. And okay, so maybe Jaskier pestered Geralt into getting the gloves, into treating himself for once. It hardly even counts as an extravagance, as far as Jaskier, in a new doublet laced with golden thread (which he bought himself, with his own earnings), is concerned. 

Jaskier is considering ripping the damned things off himself and throwing them in the dirt.He thought, mistakenly, that Geralt would ignore him, like always, but he this time, didn’t. And he wouldn’t be the first person Jaskier has convinced that he deserves a nice thing or two. 

***

It takes a long time before Jaskier actually gets mad at Geralt. Oh, there are varied and sundry things that Geralt does that get on Jaskier’s nerves, over the years, but it’s obvious that he had an indelicate upbringing. Raised by wolves, if you will, close enough to the truth given his general attitude and the pendant around his neck. Sure, Jaskier is the first one to call Geralt the “White Wolf”, but that’s who Geralt was whether someone said it or not. So when he leaves his dirty clothes on the floor, or falls asleep on the one bed while covered in blood, Jaskier can give him a break. Melitele knows no one else does. 

But there are times when he gets in one of those sullen moods where Jaskier can see the clouds forming over his head, and he says two words at a time and it’s never really what he means. Jaskier’s been traveling with him for six months, which feels like a lifetime after years and years spent in school, but he still hasn’t gotten the hang of the mood swings. In fact, he refuses to. He doesn’t deserve to be treated that way when all he’s ever done is be nice to Geralt. Kind. 

Geralt, half the time, is anything but nice, or kind. Especially not on a day like today, when they’re two days walk from the next village and even Jaskier can taste the rain on the air. Jaskier’s grown accustomed to the long walks, and he usually keeps pace with Geralt. He’s under no illusions that Geralt isn’t purposefully slowing himself down so Jaskier doesn’t get lost. That’s why it’s even more obvious that he’s moving fast today, just enough that Jaskier struggles a little to keep up. 

There hasn’t been much noise for a few hours, aside from the few times Jaskier had realized he was panting. He’s so entirely focused on staying upright that he almost doesn’t register the sudden, sharp snap as the sound of the heel of his boot breaking off. At almost the same moment he stumbles, yelping when he lands on his knees. The ground is damp, because of course it is, so now his pants are muddy, and his palms. 

Geralt stops suddenly and halts Roach. “Problem, Bard?” He’s looking in Jaskier’s direction, but not at him, expression bored. 

“Having the best day,” Jaskier says with mock cheer, getting back on his feet and then leaning against the nearest tree. He takes off his boot and examines it. “A soldier has given his life to the cause.” 

“I told you they were shit boots,” Geralt says, leading Roach on again. 

“Hey wait!” Jaskier forgets himself for a second, taking a step with his socked foot. Onto the damp ground. “Fuck! Geralt,” he shouts, and Geralt stops again. 

“If you can’t keep up…” he trails off. He waits though, a handful of seconds, until Jaskier catches up, before he starts off again at a brisk pace. 

“Oh yes,” Jaskier rolls his eyes, not even bothering to shout. Geralt can hear him just fine. “You’ll abandon me in the woods. Fuck Jaskier, right, just a bard, just your only friend, just the guy who makes sure you get the proper respect.” He’s walking a few meters behind Geralt now with his broken boot tucked under his arm, limping a little. “Fuck me,” he mutters. 

Geralt makes one of those stupid, fucking humming noises and Jaskier hits him square on the back of his head with his boot. 

He knows he caught Geralt off guard, because Geralt doesn’t catch the boot until it actually hits him. He grips it so tightly that it would be absolutely ruined if it wasn’t already missing the heel, and turns around to glare at Jaskier. “This,” he thrusts the boot forward, “Is shit. I told you it was shit, it broke because it’s shit.” 

“You’ve been running all day and you know it, trying to, I don’t know, tire me out? This is your fault.” Every time he reaches for the boot, Geralt pulls back, still determined to be an absolutely childish prick. 

“I let you follow me,” he says, lying, as if he didn’t want Jaskier there, “And if you just listened-”

“Oh no,” Jaskier interrupts, giving up on getting the boot back and throwing his arms in the air. “You do not get to tell me, a grown man, what to do, Geralt of Rivia. If you don’t want me here, all you have to do is say so.” He folds his arms, daring him. 

“I tell you every day to get lost,” Geralt mutters, and it’s true, but Jaskier knows he doesn’t really mean it. Or else he would put up more than a token protest. Even now he’s starting to cave. 

Jaskier notices Geralt is still clenching the leather in his fists, pressing grooves into the already worn fabric. “You don’t belong on the Path,” he says, apparently still intent on being difficult. “Your clothes aren’t fit for it. Stop,” he says when Jaskier starts to protest, “I know they're expensive. That’s my point.”

“Why are we having this conversation now?” Jaskier asks mournfully, somewhere between offended and exhausted. He also thinks maybe he hears thunder. 

Geralt only sighs and finally gives him the boot back. Jaskier doesn’t even bother putting it on. He doesn’t have a plan, exactly, or a spare pair of shoes, but he doesn’t have long to contemplate before the rain begins to fall, sudden and all at once. 

He expects Geralt to pick up his pace again, and Jaskier is actually debating if he’d follow when he realizes that Geralt is looking at him. Geralt is standing next to Roach, in the pouring rain, looking awkwardly between her and Jaskier. 

“You are unbelievable, Witcher,” Jaskier groans, but is not about to give up the invitation, even if he is thoroughly soaked already. 

There’s another sudden crack of thunder above them, and Geralt more or less lifts Jaskier up and onto Roach. She knickers a few times unhappily, but follows Geralt’s lead as always. And despite the shit day, it’s not long before Geralt finds them an abandoned cave. 

The past few nights, Geralt had been irritable, doling out tasks around the campfire as if Jaskier doesn’t know what he’s doing. Sure, he likes to lay out at night after working all day, but he can pull his own weight, and he’s actively forcing Geralt to learn how to add a little something called flavor to his meals. It should have been a sign of what was to come, but Jaskier has been too annoyed by it to notice. It’s only tonight, as Geralt makes camp alone without saying one word,that Jaskier realizes. 

And Jaskier knows that Geralt won’t billy him when he’s shivering in a huddle of wet clothes, waiting for the fire to build up. Without Geralt, Jaskier wouldn’t be alive, maybe even literally, if his inspiration hadn’t come around when it did. If he didn’t trust Geralt, he wouldn’t be here. “Do you trust me?” he asks Geralt, before he’s even certain he wants to ask. 

Geralt is rummaging through the bedding, making a little pile close to the fire. “Take those clothes off,” he orders with no heat, and moves on to look at their dry rations. 

Jaskier obeys, glad that Geralt isn’t even acknowledging his frankly idiotic question. Instead of putting on a dry chemise of his own, Jaskier impulsively takes one of Geralt’s shirts, because it seems warmer, and throws it over his head. He doesn’t know what else to say, and usually that means he’d talk more to make up for it, but he’s trying, really trying, not to say anything worse. 

Some time passes. Geralt doesn’t acknowledge that Jaskier is wearing his shirt, and gradually, Jaskier stops shivering. He still keeps the blanket over his shoulders, staring into the fire and imagining the rhythm of the rainfall into a song. 

“I don’t trust anyone,” Geralt says suddenly. He’s looking very carefully at his hands. “But I’ve never traveled with anyone before.” 

And just like that, Jaskier isn’t angry anymore. “Me either,” he says agreeably, and pretends not to notice when Geralt slips his hand under the blanket and wraps securely around his foot, now bare, and dry.

***

Geralt gets mad at Jaskier all the time. 

Jaskier has been accused, many times, of having a short temper, of melodrama, of cycling between moods as fast as a hummingbird. It’s been suggested that he puts it on, part of his endless performance. While it’s true that Jaskier is cheerful to a fault most of the time, it only makes him feel infinitely more irritated when things don’t go his way. Suggesting he can fake the anger is like suggesting he can change the weather. And as with the weather, Jaskier can’t do much about it but go along. He’s been in bar fights, has fallen out with colleagues, he has sworn death upon Valdo Marx should they ever cross paths again, but Geralt is his friend. A real, true friend, and that gives him a pass in Jaskier’s book, generally speaking. Which is why it takes him so long to get truly, properly angry at Geralt. 

It becomes apparent quickly that Geralt does not reciprocate the sentiment. It’s obvious Jaskier gets on his nerves from the moment they meet, but Jaskier’s reputation depends on whether people remember him. It’s the only way he’s going to ever get a reputation at all. If anything, Geralt’s indifference only makes Jaskier try harder to find a crack in his facade. Jaskier has always been drawn to older men who wouldn’t give him the time of day. It probably all started with his father, but that ship has long sailed. 

The night after Filavandrel lets them go, Geralt agrees to stay in the room Jaskier had already paid for. The morning after, he tries to sneak out before Jaskier wakes up, unaware that Jaskier is a light sleeper. For being a genetically modified predator or whatever, he’s awfully loud when he puts on his armor. Jaskier waits until the door shuts behind Geralt, and then he springs out of bed and grabs his pack and jumps out of the window, his clothes bundled under one arm and his lute against his chest. He’s had plenty of practice. By some kind of Melitele-blessed luck, the stable is only a few feet from where he lands, and he has time to get dressed and get to Geralt’s horse first. At least, he hopes it’s Geralt’s horse. He feeds her one of the withered apples thrown at him yesterday and affects a casual pose against her stall. 

Barely thirty seconds later, Geralt arrives. He stops when he sees Jaskier, his eyes widening just a bit, but he recovers quickly and continues towards Roach’s stall, decidedly not the one Jaskier is standing in front of. No matter, he has plenty of apples. “Good morning!” he says cheerfully, walking towards Geralt.

“You’re not coming with me,” Geralt says flatly as he prepares Roach for their journey. 

“But we’re going to the same place!” Jaskier tries, but Geralt raises an eyebrow. “Okay fine,” Jaskier admits, “I don’t have a particular destination in mind, but I’m certainly not wanted here.” 

Geralt smirks at that. Jaskier ignores it. “Fine. I’ll take you to the next town over.”

“Wonderful!” Jaskier claps him on the back. He’s almost positive that Geralt will come to love the pleasure of his company, and he ignores his glare. 

And Geralt does enjoy the pleasure of Jaskier’s company. He tells Jaskier to get lost every time they reach a new town, but he doesn’t try and sneak away again, and he listens to Jaskier’s stories, even though he rarely has a comment. And he tells Jaskier about his hunts, sometimes even older ones, sometimes with so much detail that Jaskier has to take notes. The details are usually centered on the best ways to kill a monster and then which of its organs to use in potions, but Jaskier still finds the story in all of it. Mostly Geralt watches him, and Jaskier learns to hear what he isn’t saying. 

And Geralt doesn’t say a lot. He grunts, and mutters under his breath, and his eyes narrow and his lips curl. Little signs of displeasure with Jaskier’s clothes, with his attitude, with his songs. But Geralt needs a little music in his life, Jaskier knows from the first words out of his mouth. As if any performer worth his salt sings about things that are real. Reality is often boring, and miserable, and it hurts. 

In the song, when Geralt is swarmed by drowners and emerges triumphant, his hard body glistens with moisture, he’s holding two heads in his fist by their hair, and sure, maybe he’s covered in blood, but that means he’s won. 

What actually happens is this: Geralt is underwater for so long that Jaskier actually worries, which is rare. When he finally emerges, he’s not so much glistening as covered in muck; dirt and black blood and other things Jaskier refuses to consider. Things that smell disgusting, and he shakes off like a dog once he gets to shore. His hair is grey and matted, mostly covering his face, and he stomps by Jaskier’s hiding place without a word back towards the village. The song also doesn’t cover how much worse the smell got on their walk, the sun high and hot in the sky, and how the innkeeper made Geralt clean off in the stables before he’d even consider letting them use the bath, heroes or not. 

Nobody wants to hear that kind of realism. There’s enough dark and miserable in this short life that Jaskier is doing everyone a favor by bringing a little sunshine into it. Geralt doesn’t thank him for it, but Jaskier can tell all the same, every time he almost-smiles. 

So maybe Geralt has endless complaints, but they don’t compare to those moments, every once in a while, when Geralt surprises himself and Jaskier, when he laughs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter's a little short, but they will get longer! The next couple of chapters are a little light on Geralt, but he will be back, I promise. 
> 
> I don't have much to say today. Comments and kudos are welcome and appreciated, thank you for reading along! 
> 
> Updates will continue ~weekly

Jaskier would be lying if he said he never wondered how Calanthe’s granddaughter fared over the years. He’d also be lying if he said he didn’t check up on her now and again. He was banned from the Cintra, sure, but Calanthe was so vain and self-assured that she couldn’t fathom that someone she branded an outlaw would dare return. And if he was a common thief or a political rival, he might be deterred by her scores of soldiers and excessively violent threats. But she’s never made an official decree against Jaskier. Plenty of warnings and wanted posters for Geralt, both fresh and well-faded, accusing him of various misdeeds; trying to harm the kingdom and her citizens under the guise of protection. Any companion of the White Wolf was to be brought in immediately for questioning, and Jaskier was perhaps his most well-known companion. Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove, however, was not. No matter how many times Jaskier tries to tell people that he and Julian were one in the same, no one listened. Which allowed him, fairly easily, to slip on the guise of a wealthy nobleman on vacation. So long as he didn’t sing. 

Over the years, for as much time as Jaskier spends traveling with Geralt, he has weeks and months of his own time, too, time he uses to build his (their) reputation without Geralt’s scowl and bad manners working against him. Time to spend a semester teaching at Oxenfurt, or even take a class or two. Time to cross the border into Cintra and check on Geralt’s Child of Surprise. Obviously Geralt wasn’t going to do it. 

Of course,Jaskier hasn’t dared try to catch a glimpse of either princess, but people tell him things, they always have, even the first time they meet. His nursemaid used to say he had a trustworthy face, right before she boxed his ears for sneaking out of his lessons or stealing cakes from the kitchen. 

It all goes well until Cirilla’s fourth year. He’s been in town for a week and he is fully satisfied that Cirilla is in perfect health and doesn’t want for anything. The worst rumor he’s heard is that her little voice could break glass if she’s worked herself into a good tantrum, and after experiencing Pavetta first-hand, Jaskier can believe it. Satisfied, he tips the inn’s maids and proprietor well, gathers his belongings and heads to the docks to hire passage up the coast to Oxenfurt. 

He spots the woman and child almost immediately. The bright blue of their matching cloaks stand out, not to mention the dozen or so guards carefully positioned around them. The woman is on her knees, her golden hair pulled away from her face and she speaks to the child. The little girl’s hair is the same in color as her mother’s, flying free in the light breeze. Their faces are also almost identical. Jaskier has heard that Cirilla takes after her mother so completely, but it’s breathtaking nonetheless to see firsthand.

Cirilla suddenly turns and meets his eyes. “That man is staring at us,” she announces. Jaskier can feel himself flush completely as the guards eye him suspiciously. Pavetta, however, lights up when she sees him. “I know you!” she says with excitement, standing up and taking Ciri’s hand. “You played at my betrothal!” Jaskier’s embarrassment turns to fear, but the guards don’t pay him any attention, satisfied that Pavetta knows him. 

Jaskier decides he doesn’t have much choice and walks up to her. “It is good to see you, Your Highness,” he says with a short bow. Then he crouches down to Cirilla’s level. “And to meet you, Your Highness.” Cirilla examines him without comment, holding tightly to Pavetta’s hand. 

“What are you doing here?” Pavetta asks when he stands up. Something in her expression tells him that she knows he’s not welcome here and won’t betray him. 

“Just a vacation,” he lies. “Needed a change of scenery.” 

“Expensive,” she says, and she doesn’t seem to mean the money. 

“I am a Viscount, after all,” he says airly, hoping that she’ll buy his attempt at playing a rich noble risking the dungeons on a lark. 

“The Viscount who asks after the Royal Family every time he visits,” she counters, eyes twinkling. She grows solemn. “Will you tell him I hope he’s well? I want him to meet her, and I’ve almost got my mother to agree with me.” 

Jaskier is skeptical. “I’ll tell him,” he agrees, “For all the good it will do. He’s not exactly keen on ...you know what.” 

“It might not matter soon,” she says quietly, looking at Cirilla.

Jaskier doesn’t have a chance to ask what she means before a sailor approaches them. “We’re ready, Your Highness,” he says. 

A few weeks later, just after the fall term begins, Jaskier hears that the Lioness of Cintra’s only daughter and son-in-law have been lost at sea, although their daughter, left home at the last minute, is safe. 

When he catches up with Geralt again, Jaskier finds that he doesn’t have the words to bring up Pavetta at all. Jaskier hardly knew her, but he still recognized the way she chafed at having to behave a certain way, how she longed for a freedom she didn’t know how to take. Not that it matters, anymore. If Calanthe had been close to allowing Geralt to meet Cirilla, it was of no doubt she would never again consider the idea. 

Jaskier still doesn’t let Calanthe stop him from inquiring after Cirilla. He tries to make himself more subtle now, listening to gossip instead of asking for it, and never, ever mentioning Pavetta. He was mourning, he realized, for everything she’d never get to do. Jaskier had never considered that her death might be the reason Geralt would come into parenthood. He’d always thought, naively, that it would be like a tutelage. And when Geralt had taught her everything she needed to know, he would drop her back home to her parents. 

Now Jaskier has no idea how Destiny thinks it’s going to pry Cirilla from her grandmother’s iron grip. 

***

As much as this should deter Jaskier from visiting Cintra, it does not. First, he’s motivated by wanting to confirm Cirilla’s safety with his own eyes, or, if he can’t do that, at least hear it from someone he can trust. After all, he swears he saw the young princess with her mother by the docks, shy but unquestionably present. He tries not to consider the possibility that there was a decoy little girl with Pavetta, now sinking to the bottom of the ocean with her fake parents. Jaskier can’t imagine that Pavetta would be so cruel, but Calanthe on the other hand…

So, six months since he’d visited Cintra, far sooner than he’d prefer, the Viscount de Lettenhove slips back into the city. It’s not difficult to find a young woman willing to pose as his personal servant for a few days. He slips her a few extra coins so she doesn’t speak unless spoken to, and goes about his business, or lack thereof. 

It’s strange to don the persona, because it feels like a costume, like he’s slipping into someone else’s life, even though it’s supposed to be his own. The odds of his parents ever hearing of this are slim, and he’s taken care not to associate with anyone who might be friendly with his family back home. Home is weeks and weeks north and in a completely different country, so it’s not really an issue. Still. He doesn’t like the sound of his voice when giving a command, it’s not _right_ , there’s no rhythm to it. He should be humming a song, playing his lute while he walks, but he has to keep calm and collected. His lute is packed away safely, stored in his apartment in Oxenfurt, and he feels strangely light without its comforting weight on his back. 

When he sees Cirilla, it’s an accident. Jaskier is killing the afternoon by wandering the merchant’s stalls, and he just happens to look up at the same moment Cirilla’s gaze meets his own. She’s sitting on the hip of a man Jaskier recognizes from the betrothal feast, the man who that very night got married to the Queen of Cintra herself. Jaskier looks away hurriedly. He’s certain that the little girl is the same little girl he’d seen with Pavetta. Her little face remains the unmistakable image of her mother’s, and Jaskier feels a pang of grief in his chest when he sees her. 

Job well done, he thinks to himself. Cirilla is confirmed alive and well, and Jaskier can get the hell out of Cintra before the husband of the woman who wants to kill him the most in all the continent catches up to him. And though Calanthe has a long line of competitors to pass to become number one “Married Woman who wants to kill Jaskier”, she’s the only one who can actually order his death. Geralt _never_ comes to Cintra, so it’s completely likely Jaskier could die here. 

“Excuse me,” a man says from behind him. Jaskier stops and steels himself, inhaling with his eyes closed. 

_Fuck fuck fuck,_ he thinks, and turns around. 

“I’m terribly sorry,” Eist begins, which is rather polite for someone who’s about to arrest you, Jaskier thinks. He also hasn’t gestured to any of the guards that watch them from a short distance away. “My granddaughter insisted she _had_ to talk to you.” 

“Oh!” Jaskier exclaims just a little too loudly, trying not to sound hysterical. Eist doesn’t seem to recognize Jaskier at all. He looks bemused, and it reminds Jaskier a bit of his own mother’s face on the few occasions she chose to spend time with him. 

“Oh, of course,” he gives her his full attention, trying not to let his eyes flick nervously to her grandfather. “How can I help you, love?” He just manages to stop himself from calling her by name. 

Eist, if possible, looks more confused that Jaskier is taking the intrusion on his time so gracefully. Cirilla says nothing, only stares at him with wide eyes. He feels like a butterfly spread and pinned under a magnifying glass. 

Only a couple more awkward moments pass before Eist clears his throat. “Ciri, darling, didn’t you have something to say?” 

She remains silent, tucking her head against Eist’s chest and looking away from Jaskier. There’s something achingly familiar about the gesture. “I really am sorry,” Eist says to Jaskier, shrugging helplessly. “I hope we haven’t kept you from anything important.” 

“Not a problem at all,” Jaskier says honestly, and resists the urge to run a hand through Cirilla’s hair. He isn’t sure he’s supposed to know who Eist is, considering he’s dressed down and the guards are some distance away, and he and the princess take their leave with one more apology. 

Jaskier heads straight back to the inn. He releases Marya from his retinue, pressing a few extra orens in her hands to keep her mouth shut about the job, and goes back to his room to pack. Of course there isn’t much, and it isn’t long before Jasker finds himself in front of an open notebook, a small candle burning. He really shouldn’t write down anything about Ciri at all, but Jaskier is a storyteller, and he can’t tell this story to anyone. The only way he’s found to quell the urge to spill everything the second he sees Geralt is to write it down first. Save it all for the day Geralt accepts his fate. When that day comes, Jaskier can save his voice and just hand him the book. 

He doesn’t write her name down, lest the book fall into the wrong hands, but he realizes later that he’s started thinking of her as “Ciri”, and he quite likes it. 

***

Chireadon can’t convince Jaskier to leave the mayor’s ruins. He tries to pull Jaskier away, like he’d pulled him from the broken window, but Jaskier resists. “Go, my friend,” he gestures towards the road, “It won’t be the first time I have to wait for the Witcher to finish up with his,” he coughs, “business. ‘Tis the life I chose.”

Chireadon almost looks sorry for him. “You’re absolutely covered in blood.” His accent is one that Jaskier would, on a normal day, be very enamoured with. On a day where he hadn’t nearly suffocated on his own blood and then almost had his balls cut off by a mad witch. “You really should come with me.” 

Jaskier winces, thinking about his room at the inn in the next town over, the town in the opposite direction of where Geralt pointed Roach to save Jaskier from dying. Although the nearly dying bit was Geralt’s fault, as well. He had to go and bully Jaskier about the one thing that mattered most to him. It would be like if he said Geralt was very bad at cutting the heads off of monsters and spraying their guts everywhere. 

Jaskier knows, for an absolute fact, that Geralt doesn’t even _like_ pie, even if it has meat in it. He’s always leaving the crusts piled on his plate like a little boy might, making a displeased face when there’s nothing else on the menu. It was a terrible metaphor. Jaskier didn’t have to sit through a semester on the subject to know.

It’s only been a little bit since Chireadon left when Geralt saunters out of the manor. He’s tucking himself into his pants, completely unashamed, and shirtless. He looks ridiculous. Jaskier feels ridiculous, watching the setting sun glisten off of Geralt’s sweaty chest. “Don’t worry about me,” he says airly, standing up. “I’m doing great.”

“I knew you were fine when you started shouting in my face.” Geralt keeps walking right past him, and Jaskier follows him. He’s not getting left behind. 

“Don’t think you can leave me behind!” Jaskier shouts, walking quickly to keep up with him. “You have to take me back to get my clothes. And my lute! “ Geralt hums at him, which is infuriating, and doesn’t tell Jaskier if he’s going to try and ditch him. “This is your fault, you know,” Jaskier mutters.

Geralt stops short, and Jaskier bumps gently into his back. Geralt doesn’t waste one second putting space between them, and then turning around. “This should be good,” he growls, “Tell me how it’s my fault that you got in my way, as usual, and fucked things up, as usual.” 

His arms are folded across his chest, and for the first time since temple school, Jaskier is struck with the urge to punch someone. But he also knows that punching Geralt would feel like punching a brick wall (he’s seen it, in bar fights, not pretty to watch a grown man break his own hand on someone’s face). So he shoves Geralt instead, for all that it feels like pushing up against a closed door.

All in all, he doesn’t shove Geralt very far at all, and winds up instead with all of his weight leaning on Geralt’s chest as they look at one another. Geralt looks just as surprised as Jaskier feels that he did this at all, and he keeps looking at Jaskier, looking at him, and getting just a little closer. 

Geralt steps back abruptly, catching Jaskier from falling and pushing him back upright with one hand. “Don’t get it my way,” he says very seriously, his arm falling back to his side. “And you won’t get hurt.” 

“I get hurt just fine on my own, thank you,” Jaskier says, marching past in the direction he’s pretty sure Roach is waiting for them, not wavering, even when his own words register to him. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy life has been rougher than usual, friends, hence the late posting. But now things are getting really fun, so it's worth the wait! 
> 
> My take on Valdo Marx is always that he's well-meaning but annoying, and in this little story Jaskier makes a big fuss about disliking him to keep their mutual side job a secret. 
> 
> This is entirely my take on what little canon backstory we've been given about Jaskier between the books, games, and show, although this primarily takes place in the show verse. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments/kudos are loved and appreciated.

Oxenfurt is thrilled when Jaskier arrives just in time for the summer semester and announces he plans to stay indefinitely. To his delight, Essi and Priscilla are in residence as well, agreeable as always to meet immediately for drinks. 

As the evening passes over a couple of bottles of wine, Jaskier pretends not to feel out of place as just another patron at the tavern. He’s left his lute home for the night, and anyway, he’d look a bit foolish playing here, where the stage is usually occupied by students who haven’t yet made a name for themselves. Or worse, it would seem like Jaskier was mocking his future students. So he spends the night gossiping, for once not carrying the weight of an entire conversation on his own.

“But what the bastard didn’t know,” Essi says, sloshing her third glass a little, “Was that I was watching him in case he decided to get fresh with Priscilla. Which he _did,_ ” she pauses to finishes the rest of her drink, and Priscilla picks right up where she left off. 

“She broke a mug over his head,” Priscilla says with barely contained glee, clapping her hands together.

Essi shrugs. “He stuck his hand up your shirt.” 

Prisiclla examines her blouse, green with blue embroidery around the neckline and sleeves. “Perhaps I should start tucking it in, what do you think?” 

“That’ll be the day Jaskier buttons his doublet the whole way up,” Essi says with a snort. 

Jaskier’s doublet is, in fact, unbuttoned and open, exposing a few centimeters of tanned skin and dark hair. He gives Essi a little hall-shrug. “Like what you see?” He bats his eyelashes. 

They stare each other down for a few moments, and then the three of them burst into giggles. 

“Having fun without me?” a voice interrupts from behind Jaskier, “Perish the thought!”

Jaskier shudders as he turns around in his seat. “Marx.” he glares. Marx grabs the empty seat and flips it backwards, sitting down and resting his arms on the seat back. Jaskier knows for a fact that he’s in his forties, just like the rest of them, and he looks ridiculous. 

“What brings you back, Julian? I heard you changed careers.” Wherever this is going, Jaskier doesn't like it. “Although you’re a bit old to be a squire, don’t you think?” 

Jaskier is tempted to break _his_ glass over Marx’s head, but it’s too thin and slight, and it won’t be satisfying. “Oh, you’re a bad comedian now, as well as a bad poet?” he snarks instead. 

Marx only smirks. “Come on, we’re dying to know why you gave up the glamorous life of a traveling performer after twenty years.” 

“No we aren’t,” Essi says quickly, “And nobody really cares what you think.” 

Priscilla looks between the three of them and bites her bottom lip. “We all used to get along, you know,” she sighs. “When did you become such a prick?” she asks Marx. 

“He was always a prick,” Essi cuts in, “You just didn’t notice until you stopped sleeping with him.” 

Priscilla nods. “That’s fair.”

Marx doesn’t even look offended. “I’ve been called worse,” he shrugs, “But I truly just hate to see Julian in such a sulk.” 

“I’m not sulking,” Jaskier says in a voice he tries to keep measured, but ends up coming out small and annoyed. He has had at least twice as much to drink as the girls. “I’m passing on my legacy, okay? Molding the minds of the future, or whatever, so they don’t sound like absolute shit and take a residence in their hometown because no one else will take them.” 

Marx doesn’t respond for a moment, and then starts to laugh. “It’s always a pleasure to see you again, Julian.” He gets up and claps against Jaskier’s back before walking away, still laughing to himself. Jaskier hopes it’s the last he’ll see of him for a while, although that’s never the case.

In fact it’s only a couple of hours before Marx approaches Jaskier again, this time while he’s taking a piss in the alley. He waits until Jaskier is finished, exhibiting self-control that Jaskier wasn’t expecting. 

“You came just in time,” he says, serious but with his usual hint of irreverence. “Nilfgard sent soldiers two days ago.” He seems almost excited. 

“I hate you,” Jaskier mutters, suddenly more sober than he’s felt in hours. He can sense a headache coming. “You could have said something before I got pissed, you know.” 

Marx shrugs. “We aren’t meeting until tomorrow morning.” 

Fuck, Jaskier thinks, and goes back inside to get as drunk as possible while he still can. 

He did say he was staying indefinitely, so he won’t technically be lying when he quits in the morning. 

***

By the time the tavern kicks them out, it’s late enough it’s almost early. Jaskier kisses both Essi and Priscilla on the cheek and promises to see them soon. He only feels a little guilty that he’s lying to them. 

He decides to go to his flat. His arrival in the city is less conspicuous here, and also, the school might actually take it away from him when he quits again before the semester even starts. May as well enjoy it while he can. 

He hardly sleeps, sinking in and out of almost dreams, and by the time he gives up trying for good, the sun has just begun to creep over the horizon and he’s creeping towards hungover. When the knock comes to his door, a familiar but distinct pattern, he’s sorely tempted to just ignore it and bury himself under the covers. But then they might come looking for him, or worse, Marx will go off and do something stupid and dangerous and Jaskier will never hear the end of it. 

University students and early mornings typically do not mix, especially when there aren’t classes scheduled yet, so the school is still mostly deserted when Jaskier walks across campus. The vice-chancellor's offices are deserted of even staff as Jaskier takes the familiar path to the top floor. Jaskier should not be surprised when he tries the office door and finds it locked, but he rolls his eyes all the same, and mimics the same knock he heard against his own door this morning. The latch unlocks, and Jaskier pushes through as the man on the other side starts to ask who it is. “Honestly, Piotr,” he says, taking in the usual suspects at the table, “Who else was it gonna be?” Marx looks completely unbothered by the early hour, damn him. It also looks like Jaskier is the last to arrive, as usual, which suits him just fine. In fact, he wishes they’d started without him. 

Although Dijkstra has never been an educator, he has perfected the disapproving glare he directs at Jaskier while he gets himself settled. Pity for him that Jaskier has been ignoring those looks since temple school. Dijkstra should know better than to bother by now.

There’s a basket of sad looking muffins in the middle of the table, next to a pitcher of ale. Jaskier takes his time pouring a mug, and then taking a muffin, even though he’s not particularly planning to eat any time soon. So maybe he’s trying to get on their nerves, but it’s all part of his masterful plan to get them to kick him out of this awful little club. It’s going to work, one of these days. 

Jaskier doesn’t, generally speaking, discuss this part of his life for two reasons. For one, the rest of the agents want him here as much as he wants to be here, which is to say, not at all, and so they often conveniently forget he’s one of them, too, unless it’s serious. Second, he can absolutely keep a secret, when it’s worth keeping, and when the alternative is probably a bounty on his head. Being banned from one royal court is more than enough when you’re trying to make it as a traveling bard. Nevermind that Jaskier is not trying to make it as a traveling bard any more. 

Rumors and suggestions of Nilfgard’s intentions had been brewing for weeks, and some of Dijkstra’s contacts had warned him ahead that they were sending scouts further and further North. Sure enough, two foreigners had arrived the next day, and trailing them for a few hours eventually proved their true intentions. 

“Normally, we wouldn’t ask you here,” Dijkstra finally addresses Jaskier. “But you and Valdo are in the perfect position to keep observing them over the next few weeks. It’s impossible to know what they’re planning at this point. We have reason to believe they’ll be marching on Cintra, but we don’t know their plans beyond that.” 

At Cintra, Jaskier pales and drops the muffin he’d been picking apart. _Cintra_. If Cintra is in trouble, Cirilla is in trouble. 

He pushes past the sudden lump in his throat and nods. “Let me guess: follow them around without getting caught, and if I get caught, I’ve never heard of the Redanian Secret Service.” 

“Something like that,” Dijkstra agrees. “I’m sure it won’t be a problem for you.” 

“Not at all,” Jaskier says with as much enthusiasm as he can manage, “So grateful for this opportunity.” 

Jaskier hopes to slip out the moment the meeting has ended, but Mar corners him. “I’m a little disappointed they aren’t sending us somewhere.I’d always wondered what it would be like to travel with you.”

Jaskier’s eyebrows rise into his hairline. There are plenty of good reasons he doesn’t like Marx; he’s a talentless hack for one, hardly worthy of coming in second place in their graduating class. Yes, Jaskier is bitter about it, even though he’d come in first. Whenever Jaskier hears one of Marx’s songs, which isn’t often you can be sure, he’s reminded why the man hasn’t placed in a bardic competition in years. 

Jaskier has carefully never considered that this may be a result of Marx focusing his time elsewhere, like teaching, for example, or being a spy. He just can’t imagine Marx as either one of those things, even though it was Marx who did both of those things before Jaskier. Jaskier had opted to get out of town and onto the road the second he had his diploma in hand, which had seemed like a great idea even if he was hungry all of the time. While his classmates settled into a court or a professorship, Jaskier felt so authentic, a true artist. He was a fool. 

Truly by chance, he fell into the secret service. The first winter Jaskier had taken Oxenfurt up on their repeated pleas for him to teach (okay, it was only a couple of letters), he almost immediately lost several rounds of Gwent fantastically. The kind of situation where he really wished Geralt and his harsh glare were around. As it was, his opponent, who introduced himself as Sigismund Dijkstra, had assured him there was a simple way to absolve himself from the debt. 

A few mornings later, Jaskier was sitting at the table in the vice-chancellor’s topmost office. “He gets a lot of recruits that way,” Marx had said sympathetically. And Jaskier loved having that in common with him, he really did. 

***

For several weeks, very little happens. It only takes a couple of days to learn the habits of the two Nilfgardian men, and when he doesn’t have class or any other pressing engagement, he mimics their daily moves. Most of the time they sit in one of the taverns by the docks, more a working man’s watering hole than for one for students. One of the few of its kind in the university city. At the week’s end, he meets up with Marx to share anything of note, and there’s usually not much. The two men keep to themselves most of the time. They’re loud and boorish and crude to the barmaids. Jaskier’s impressed as always with the maids for how much they put up with; he has his dagger out of his boot and in hand the second a drunken patron tries to get fresh with him while he performs. The women here take it in stride, and Jaskier makes sure to leave them a few extra coins before he leaves. 

A month in, and Jaskier is certain that Nilfgard is up to exactly what it’s usually up to: a whole lot of threats with very little payoff. Then the familiar knock comes at his door in the early hours of the morning, completely unexpected. 

“Nilfgard has taken Cintra,” Dijkstra says with no preamble. Jaskier feels sick immediately. He would have sworn on his considerable inheritance that Calanthe would never release her grip on her kingdom, so she must be dead, and if she’s dead, then Ciri is either on her way or already there. And if Ciri is in danger, well, Geralt has a sixth sense for those kinds of things, and it’s as likely he was present for the attack as not. 

It’s a sensation not unfamiliar to the moment all those years ago when he thought Geralt (and Yennefer) had been crushed to death in the collapsed manor. A ringing in his ears, his heart nosediving from his chest and straight into the dirt. He should have known better than to leave Geralt behind on the mountain. Jaskier’s watched him escape time after impossible time, and every man’s time comes, even a Witcher’s. He should have told Geralt off like he deserved, like he’s done so many times in his mind since. Now he’ll never have that chance. 

If Geralt is not dead, he will wish he was when Jaskier sees him next. And then Jaskier will probably do something entirely embarrassing, like kiss him or cry into his ridiculously firm, smelly chest. 

Jaskier and Marx have been told to stand down for the moment while Dijkstra waits for further intelligence. So Jaskier takes the opportunity to go out with Essi and Priscilla to drown the sorrows of several months worth of careful compartmentalizing collapsing at once. 

He shouldn’t be surprised that Marx already has a table saved for them, even though he wasn’t actually invited. “I’ve got this round,” he announces when they sit, and disappears towards the bar.

Both Essi and Priscilla look at Jaskier suspiciously. “Is there something going on between you two?” Essi asks, blunt as usual. 

“Perish the thought,” Jaskier says with a little more drama that would normally be necessary, but this is Marx. “We’re ah,” he glances away, “Collaborating.” 

Essi narrows her eyes at him while Priscilla barely hides a giggle. “So you _are_ fucking.” 

“No!” Jaskier yelps, and flushes when a few patrons look his way. “No,” he says more quietly, “I'd sooner become celibate.” 

Essi still looks skeptical, but Priscilla seems to accept his answer. ‘If the White Wolf is half as impressive as your songs make him out to be, I don’t think I’d have sex with anyone else ever again.” 

Jaskier chokes on nothing while the girls laugh, and desperately wishes for Marx to come back with the drinks already. Possibly the first time he’s wanted Marx to come back instead of stay away. 

“Speaking of the White Wolf,” Priscilla begins, and _ugh_ , why does everyone call him that? He has a name, surprisingly ordinary, and always responds best to that and not some nickname. “When’s the next ballad coming?” 

“Yeah,” Essi agrees, just as Marx returns to their table. “One of the perks of this friendship is hearing the continent’s next hit before everyone else does.” 

Jaskier tries not to frown, gripping his mug tightly. “I think it’s a little played out, don’t you?” 

“Nonsense!” Priscilla says, and Essi does a poor job of elbowing her into silence. “He’s always so romantic, never asking for payments, rescuing babes and grandmothers from certain death.” 

“Most of it's fake,” Jaskier mutters, taking a long drink to avoid saying anything more. Anything worse. 

“The best fairy tales always are,” Marx interjects, the bastard, as if he’s the first person to ever say such a thing. “I for one have never had much luck trying to rid myself of my muse.”

“You have a muse?” Jaskier blurts out, before he can stop himself. For a moment, Valdo seems hurt, but the look passes quickly. 

For the next couple of drinks, Marx takes over the conversation and describes his muse in detail, a Cidarian noble who married for politics, and Jaskier tunes out the drone of his voice. He almost misses the two men who enter the bar, dressed all in black, completely out of place in the establishment. When he sees them, a prickle of fear runs down his spine, but when one of the men looks over in their direction by chance there’s no recognition on his face. Marx sees them though, his voice stuttering, and Jaskier unsubtly kicks his chair to snap him out of it. 

“I’ll be right back,” Jaskier announces, standing up suddenly. He ignores the way the room tilts, just a bit, before righting itself. 

Melitele must be on his side when he approaches the bar. The men have taken a table nearby and Jaskier can hear them as he orders another ale. Even better, it sounds like more than just idle chatter. 

“Found the Queen’s corpse,” one of them is saying, and another involuntary chills down Jaskier’s spine. _Calanthe._ “Guess Cintran bitches die just like anyone else.” 

The other man guffaws, an ugly sound to go with his ugly face and ugly attitude. They’re both clearly drunk, and Jaskier is also drunk, drunk and _annoyed,_ and -

“ - orens. Hey!” the barman snaps his fingers. “Pay up.” 

Jaskier makes a decision, the kind that once upon a time would have made a certain someone very angry with him, takes his wine, and sits down across from the Nilfgardian men. 

“Gentleman,” he says to their twin slack-jawed expressions, “Anyone up for a game of Gwent?” He takes his deck out of his pockets and the men look at one another, and then shrug. The fools don’t even think to check if it’s a trick deck, and allow him to deal them in. 

Jaskier knows how to play just well enough that it’s not over too soon, but not well enough to win. If he was playing for real, he’d be wiping the floor with the both of them, but he loses on purpose, and then loses again, looking forlorny at his dwindling coin pile. He sighs when he loses the fourth time, funds well and truly cleared out (he has a spare purse in his boot, and also, he’s gonna get this money back), and holds up his hands. “I don’t suppose you’d take an IOU?” Then men share another one of their disgusting laughs. “Nothing for it,” Jaskier pretends to make a decision. “One more round. If I win my coin back, you let me have it. If not, well,” he flutters his eyelashes, “I’m sure you boys could figure out some way for me to pay up.” 

A ghost of a voice in his head wonders if he’s really worth that much money, and he shoves it away along with the bile that threatens to rise in his throat. Worst case scenario, he’ll just have to kill them both. No one will miss them. 

They couldn’t agree faster. Jaskier spends the next several rounds fidgeting in his seat, exaggerating a good hand. Letting them think he thinks he won. It is no surprise that they fall for it. A few times, Jaskier notices one of his friends looking over at him, but he pretends not to see them, even when Marx makes an exaggerated cutting motion at his throat. And well fine, Dijkstra told them to stand down, but he couldn’t exactly predict this turn of events. 

When he “loses”, the two men look extremely pleased with themselves, and Jaskier briefly reconsiders. He could just cut their throats here and call it a day. Instead, he beckons a maid over. “Greta, love,” he says, “Can I get a room upstairs? You can put it on my tab.” 

“Lucky man,” she says, smirking a little. Oh, it is going to take _ages_ to repair his reputation after this. “I’ll get you a key.” 

Several minutes later, both men are tied back to back on the floor, gagged, and passed out. There’s blood trickling from the forehead of the bigger one, and the other one’s lip is split under his giant, messy beard. Jaskier himself thinks he’ll have a black eye in the morning and he’s twisted his ankle the wrong way, and now he’s drinking wine and trying to get the taste of the bigger one out of his mouth. Kissing had been a necessary evil, unfortunately, and how he got the drop on them. A headbutt first, always an effective surprise, and then he’d more or less used his natural agility to get them to knock each other out when they were aiming for him. While they’d been getting drunker, he’d been getting sober. It was truly embarrassing for them that they didn’t realize how easily they’d been played. 

There’s a knock at the door. Jaskier answers it, and the noise causes at least one of the men to stir, making muffled noises into the cloth stuffed into his mouth. At this point, it’s not like Jaskier can let them go, so he opens the door without caring if anyone can see inside. “Ah, Valdo!” he says, feeling uncharacteristically friendly. “You should go get Dijkstra.”

“ _Jaskier_ ,” Valdo gasps, and Jaskier expects some kind of lecture, not a thumb gently pressed beneath his eyelid. “Your _eye_.” He peeks into the room. “Melitele, what have you done?” 

“Don’t worry, I can see just fine.” And he’s only lying a little, things are a little blurry, but that could be adrenaline, and it’s not the first time he’s been punched in the face when someone was mad he stopped kissing them. The second man is now making muffled noises of irritation, and struggling. “Knock it off,” Jaskier snaps at them, and they both actually listen. “You’re far away from any friends here.” 

To say Dijkstra is unhappy is an understatement, if his lengthy, tight-lipped lecture is anything to go by the next morning. Jaskier’s eye is well and truly swollen shut, and he’s been limping, and Dijkstra should be _happy_. If it weren’t for Jaskier then no one would know about the ships Nilfgard plans to send the long way up the coast when they secure victory at Sodden, or about the soldiers they plan to unleash on Oxenfurt and Novigrad, trying to establish some kind of coastal stronghold. The very idea makes Jaskier vibrate with anger. 

“We have a protocol for how we operate,” Dijkstra says heavily, and Jaskier feels his lip curl. 

“You’re cowards,” he says evenly. “And fools.” 

“Go home, Jaskier,” Dijkstra sighs. “Someone will come for you when you’re needed next.”

Jaskier has a feeling that knock won’t come for a long time. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back, dear hearts! 
> 
> I regret to inform you that Geralt is not back yet, but soon. I had quite a bit of fun exploring Jaskier on his own, first. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

As predicted, the Service doesn’t call for him again, but he meets Marx a few times in private to discuss the imprisoned men. If their roles were reversed, Jaskier would hate Valdo, actually hate him as opposed to the mostly exaggerated dislike. He’d hate his recklessness, his meanness. Jaskier had the situation under control from the moment they had started playing Gwent, but he can see how, from an outsider’s perception, it might have seemed like more of a gamble. 

You don’t start a game of chance unless you’re sure of your own victory. Something he was always trying to explain to Geralt. Geralt always thought it didn’t make sense to play the game at all. 

“Why did you come here?” he asks Marx one night, drinking together in Jaskier’s secret flat. Or maybe they’re at Valdo’s, it’s late, and they’re drunk, and he’s not entirely certain anymore. “To teach full time, I mean.” 

Valdo leans up from the garishly patterned chaise left behind by the previous room’s occupant (Definitely Jaskier’s room, then.) but he doesn’t answer right away. Jaskier can remember how excited he’d been to finally go home back when they graduated. To settle, in one city, probably for the rest of his life. “I needed a change of scenery,” he explains now in a way that means that something painful happened, and leaves it at that. It’s not as if Jaskier has earned the right to know any of Marx’s secrets. “What about you?” he asks. 

Jaskier doesn’t expect the question, although he should, in retrospect. “Dunno,” he lies. He decides the time for glasses has long passed and drinks directly from the bottle of wine. Marx narrows his eyes, and then makes grabby hands for the bottle, before Jaskier is even finished. He passes it over with a scowl.

Marx finishes the bottle, and Jaskier decides not to be annoyed for now. “I wasn’t expecting anything,” he says as he sets the bottle on the floor, “Eryk was promised to her since we were boys, and besides, our lives kept pulling us further and further apart.” It takes Jaskier a moment to catch up and realize Marx is actually telling him what brought him to Oxenfurt in the first place. “We kept seeing each other, of course, and never settling down in one place made it easy for me to follow him. And then the plague came through the part of the city where he lived, and I wasn’t there for some reason or another, and now he’s dead.” His hands fidget in his lap. “His son’s planning on coming here, in a few years. By then I might be ready to move back home.” 

Bollocks. Jaskier doesn’t say anything, but he does get up and retrieves another bottle of wine from his secret stash. Marx deserves it. 

“Why did you tell me all that?” Jaskier asks, seated on the floor now, just a little bit in front of where Marx sits on the chaise. It’ll make it easier to pass the bottle back and forth. 

“Something’s been bothering you ever since you got here,” Marx slurs a little. The light from the fireplace doesn’t quite hide that his eyes are glassy, lips are a little red with wine, ash blonde hair a little mussed. He starts a little when Jaskier wraps a hand around his calf, but he doesn’t move out of the way, or even acknowledge it. “Just thought you should know that you’re not the only one who’s had some awful shit happen to them.” 

“Oh, you!” Jaskier gasps, affronted, and bites his thigh. It’s the first thing that pops into his head to do, and he doesn’t bite hard, but Marx cries out all the same. Not very much like someone in pain, Jaskier notices. 

Their eyes meet, and neither one of them speaks. Jaskier realizes he’s the one with the wine, so this time, he finishes the bottle, before dropping it. If it leaks out onto his rug, so be it. He’s more worried now about Marx’s fists in his doublet, already open, pulling them forward and they don’t break eye contact, even when they’re inches apart. “I hate you,” he says, firmly, and allows himself to be kissed. 

He’s really never been sure why anyone would get rid of the chaise, despite it’s looks, as it’s quite the perfect size to get fucked by your professional rival. It’s even comfortable to relax flat on after, when neither one of them quite feel like moving. 

It’s not the first time they’ve done this, but it is the first time since the term started. The first time in a long time Jaskier has actually felt inclined to have sex with anyone, really, and of course it was the first person who insulted him. At least he hadn’t suddenly found himself with a hard-on when Dijkstra lectured him. 

There’s just something about the familiarity, the feeling of Marx’s fingers in his hair, the sighs of pleasure that give way to louder moans. Jaskier feels like himself, here, with no pressure to impress. They aren’t each other’s first choice, and it’s not a secret. 

He’s lying in the vee of Marx’s legs, resting his head on his thigh and debating how miserable his body will feel in the morning when he wakes up. He’ll already be frightfully hungover. 

“You never answered my question,” Marx says, and he sounds far away now, unimportant. “Why did you come back here?” Jaskier lifts his head to glare at Marx, fully awake again. “It’s only fair.” 

“My boyfriend died too,” he lies, dropping his head back down. 

Marx pinches his naked bicep, hard. “You’re truly a monster right now, d’ you know that? Priscilla and Essi have noticed it too.” The bastard sounds worried, as well as irritated, and Jaskier truly doesn’t know why they put up with each other. Even with the fantastic sex. 

“I wanted to do something that matters,” Jaskier mumbles into Marx’s leg, hoping it’s enough. 

He’s startled when Marx laughs. “Julian, some of my students study your music. For classes you don’t teach.” 

Jaskier frowns, biting his lip. “It’s all shit.”

“Popular, catchy shit,” Marx says lightly, and Jaskier makes an annoyed sound instead of responding. “Just tell me what happened. I won’t say anything to anyone else.” 

So Jaskier does. He wants to sleep, very badly, and he’s going to be even more annoyed in the morning when he remembers the conversation, but the story has been sitting at the back of his throat for weeks and weeks and it’s easier to just let it go. 

“Only you would go and fall in love with a Witcher, Julian,” Marx says when he’s through, fondly exasperated. “You understand they don’t feel things like we do.” 

“Bullshit,” Jaskier says emphatically, “He does so, more than anyone else I’ve ever met.” 

“Okay,” Marx says calmly, “You’d know better than me.” He doesn’t sound convinced, but he’s never met Geralt, never seen him accept a hand-woven doll from a little girl as payment for saving her mother. Never saw the same doll tucked into one of Geralt’s saddlebags until winter, when it suddenly disappeared. And he’s never felt Geralt’s anger, fixated on him and whatever he might have done wrong this time. “Maybe it’s a good thing you parted. But you could always go back to traveling alone.” 

It wouldn’t be the same, but Jaskier doesn’t know how to explain it without sounding like more of a lovesick fool, so he pretends to fall asleep, until he does. 

***

As well as casual sex and a priest’s ear, Marx also sneaks him into the vice-chancellor’s offices. It’s one of those rare times of day that they’re empty of both their official and unofficial inhabitants. It’s entirely possible there’s some kind of ceremony going on today, could possibly be why Marx disappeared practically the second he unlocked the doors for Jaskier, as soon as he secured a promise that Jaskier would lock the doors behind him when he was finished.

Marx had also pulled out another key, using it to unlock a desk drawer. Inside the drawer, there was a neat stack of correspondence intercepted on its way to the two scouts currently languishing in the Oxenfurt dungeons.

“We haven’t broken the code yet,” Marx warns him before parting. It’s needless to say that the prisoners haven’t offered any help. 

Twenty minutes or perhaps several decades later, Jaskier leans against the wall in front of the open drawer, several letters spread out around him. He’s not really sure what he was expecting to find in the letters. Some kind of veiled reference to Cirilla, a hint of what might have happened to her after Cintra’s fall. A clue that Jaskier will understand immediately, because he’s met her, was friends with her mother, sort of. 

Jaskier barely stops himself from crumpling the letters in his hands. It’s useless. With each year that passed after Calanthe lost her only daughter she drew her borders tighter and tighter. Made it harder for a more-and-more popular performer to gain entry without being noticed. And then Geralt was allowing him to travel at his side for longer and longer stretches at a time, and Jaskier had thought, so foolishly, that Calanthe’s protections would be enough to keep Ciri safe. It _should_ have been enough. 

There’s nothing else for it, Jaskier decides. If Calanthe is dead, then Ciri is out there, somewhere, alone, in Nilfgard’s hands or not. Geralt has made his feelings on his child known, so she’s certainly not with him. And if it’s truly Jaskier’s fault that Geralt wound up bound to Ciri in the first place, then Jaskier will clean up the mess now.

Cirilla is alive. He doesn’t even consider otherwise. 

***

Six months after returning to Oxenfurt, Jaskier leaves the way he came. The Southern gates exit onto a bridge that crosses the Pontar and into Temeria. From there, Jaskier hasn’t got a clue. It’s impossible to guess what direction the girl might have escaped, except for that south is where Nilfgard is, and he imagines she’s eager to get herself as far away from them as possible. So he’ll just go south until he hits Cintra (what’s left of Cintra), and then figure it out from there. Geralt was always tracking things, and Jaskier can’t imagine it’d be harder to find a human child than it is a monster. 

His first night back on the road, he finds a town large enough to have an inn and performs for the crowd. The crowd is small, largely disinterested, and yet Jaskier feels a weight lift off his shoulders. He becomes himself, again, and it’s as thrilling as any competition with none of the stakes to sour the feeling. The coin he makes barely covers a single mug of watery ale, but Jaskier doesn’t mind paying for a room and food out of his own pocket. Apparently when one actually commits to teaching a full semester one receives a salary, and on top of that, Marx had shoved a hefty purse at him on Jaskier’s last night. Something from himself, and Essi and Priscilla, to keep Jaskier going as long as he needed. 

He couldn’t tell them his true goals, of course, but there was something comforting about realizing there were people who _knew_ you, thought about you when you weren’t around, wanted to care for you. Something you don’t know you were missing until you have it. 

Days pass. Jaskier still wears finer clothes to travel, especially now there’s never the threat of anything more foul than mud to stain them. He travels slowly on his own, always stopping in the nearest town when it’s dark, listening to the gossip on the wind to steer clear of any monster-infested areas. Areas that may be in want of a witcher to fulfill their contracts. A few times he loses ground traveling up north again, retracing his steps to find a safer route. Weeks pass. It’s too long, and Jaskier is wasting his time, he’s never going to find her. Destiny has never seen fit to include him in her games. 

In Maribor, the crowds are so enthusiastic he spends two nights entertaining them. It’s truly up to Fate now, whether he finds Cirilla or not, and instead she’s practically throwing coins into his lap. He may as well take advantage of the situation. 

On the second night he takes a break early, weary in the sort of way he only gets when the energy of the audience is so high, so demanding of his attention. There’s a woman, too, dressed for hunting, who keeps looking at him. He makes sure to sit at a table that’s facing her direction when he eats. The stew is bland but not inedible, and every once in a while, he glances over at the hunter. He’s not paying attention to the men at the table beside his, but they’re loud, and he can’t help but hear their conversation. 

“Sodden Hill, my cousin heard it’s just corpses for miles. All twisted up and burnt by magic.” 

“Hard to believe thirty mages did what Cintra’s armies couldn’t,” his companion replies. 

“Cintra’s cursed,” the first man says, followed by a sound of spitting. “Kept a Witcher in a cage like a little sideshow and it cursed them.” 

Chills run down Jaskier’s spine. Geralt was held captive in Cintra while Jaskier sulked and wished for him to be miserable. And if Geralt was in Cintra, and Cintra fell, then? 

Geralt’s alive, too. There’s no other alternative. 

***

Jaskier starts having nightmares that feel like memories when he wakes. Dreams of wandering over Geralt’s corpse, silent and yet somehow still asking what took Jaskier so long to find him. Sometimes Cirilla is there, as small as when he’d seen her last, or her mother, lifeless. Waiting for Jaskier, who never came. 

Awake, he doesn’t fancy himself some kind of savior, but even then he can admit, Geralt is reckless when he’s alone. Not suicidal, but uncaring if he survives or not. At least, when Jaskier is there, Geralt has to keep him alive, and it gives him a reason to fight to win. Jaskier knows that there are many reasons Geralt tries to shake him off, many reasons that only make him cling harder. Until Geralt had simply pushed him away one too many times, and Jaskier’s back hit a wall he hadn’t even seen coming. He was surprised to realize that even if Geralt had tried to find him (which he didn’t), Jaskier would have ignored him. 

Alone, Geralt had obviously gone off and rushed into Cintra half-cocked with no plan, absolutely shit at patience for a seasoned predator. Without someone (Jaskier) to temper his rash instincts, he’d gotten himself thrown into a dungeon, and probably burned with the rest of Cintra. Jaskier knows that a Witcher can be killed just as much as any other creature, when they allow something to disturb their focus. Geralt made sure to make it clear. A child, his child, in danger, is a distraction. Probably the worst possible kind. 

So at night, Jaskier sweats through scenarios that all end terribly, and during the day he moves further south, determined to find that Geralt and Cirilla are together and well. When Geralt sees Jaskier, he’ll scold him for putting himself in danger, unable to understand why someone would worry if he’s alive. And Ciri will be what Geralt needs to finally, _finally_ allow himself to live. Melitele knows Jaskier wasn’t enough for him. 

There’s a town seated on the Yaruga, several miles north of Sodden Hill, and on Jaskier’s second night in the tavern, he sees Yennefer. She’s with a woman with dark, curly hair, and doesn’t seem to notice Jaskier although they are technically part of his audience. She’s turned towards the woman, and they’re looking at one another intensely without speaking. Jaskier might mistake them for impassioned lovers had he not known that Yennefer could read minds and presumably her companion could as well. When he gets close to them, sneaking glances while he performs, he can see that their faces are painted but they look wan underneath. More like humans. 

Jaskier isn’t sure what compels him to approach them when the night’s earnings have been successfully stored away. He uses some of the money to buy a round of drinks, and brings it to their table. “Ladies,” he says cheerfully. 

“Jaskier,” Yennefer says wearily, only the slight widening of her eyes betraying her shock. “I’m surprised you lived through Cintra.” 

Jaskier frowns, “Wasn’t at Cintra. Haven’t traveled with Geralt in some time.”

Yennefer’s eyes widen slightly again. “He certainly has a talent for hurting the people who care about him the most.” Jaskier is truly not sure if she means to cut him or commiserate with him. 

“And who’s your enchanting friend,” he asks, reaching out for her hand. She laughs a bit at the pun, and seems surprised about it. 

“Triss Merigold,” she says, rolling her eyes when he kisses her fingers. “Are you in love with Geralt, too?”

“I’m not in love with Geralt,” he insists automatically, at the same time Yennefer says the exact same thing. She sounds much angrier than Jaskier feels, and maybe sincere, which Jaskier is absolutely not. Although he has desperately, desperately tried to hate him. “I don’t even know if he’s alive,” Jaskier adds. 

Yennefer looks like her glass is filled with lemon juice. “Me either. I can’t sense him, but that doesn’t mean much. Since the battle I’ve been...drained.”

“We all have,” Triss reassures her, resting her hand on Yennefer’s back. “It’ll come back, in time.”

“We don’t have time,” Yennefer mutters, “Nilfgard will try another way North soon enough.” 

It seems like maybe they’ve forgotten Jaskier is there and he considers simply leaving. But, he realizes, he’s worried about them both. He’s correctly assumed Triss is a sorcerer as well, and it doesn’t look like either of them could win so much as a staring contest right now. “I’m going to find him,” he finds himself blurting out. Alive or dead, he doesn’t say. “How long will you be here?” 

Triss and Yennefer look at one another and then back at Jaskier, defeated. “As long as it takes,” Triss says. 

Then Jaskier has nightmares about them too, about the kind of threats they face while their defences are lowered. He’s not surprised that Triss features in his fears as well, even after just meeting her once. She’s openly kind in a way Jaskier has never experienced from a sorcerer, and he’s seen enough of them during his twenty odd years of travel. Oxenfurt is full of them, sometimes. So Jaskier worries about her too, and keeps an ear out for Nilfgard’s next move. Prays to a goddess he never quite believed in that these four people stay safe. And he prays for himself, too. 

***

Jaskier gets closer and closer to Cintra, despite the rumors, because that’s the best place he can think of to start. Either Geralt is there, and dead, or there’s some sign of where he left. And even more certainly, a hint of Cirilla’s fate. 

He’s still several days' journey out when he sees a man dressed similarly to the men he’d captured in Oxenfurt. If he notices Jaskier, he doesn’t see him as a threat, or maybe he doesn’t see him at all. It’s almost too easy for Jaskier to wait until dark, until the man has fallen asleep beside his dying fire, to slip into his camp. The man doesn’t even stir when Jaskier presses a dagger to his throat, and Jaskier has to shake him a little bit. Despite all that, he becomes alert quickly. “The Witcher,” Jaskier says, careful to keep the emotion from his voice, not sure he manages. “Where is he?”

The man sneers. “How should I know?” Maybe he’s lying, maybe not. He doesn’t waiver even when Jaskier presses the blade down just a little harder, drawing a trickle of blood. “The Emperor isn’t afraid of Witchers.” They’re getting nowhere fast, Jaskier realizes, and he’s going to have to kill him and get absolutely nothing out of the encounter. Oxenfurt all over again. 

“Wait!” the man gasps, and maybe he didn’t believe Jaskier would kill him before, but now he’s genuinely afraid. “They’re holding him and the girl in Dillingen,” he inhales haltingly, Adam's apple bobbing against the dagger. “The Black Knight is coming for them both.” 

“Fuck,” Jaskier says to himself. Sodden Hill will have delayed the Nilfgaardian army, but The Black Knight, could be traveling North on his by himself. “What does he want with them?” 

“The Emperor demanded the Black Knight capture the girl, none of our business why.” There’s shock on his face when Jaskier slits his throat, and Jaskier is glad he’d been wearing old, stained clothing already. He douses the fire completely and goes back to his own camp. 

He packs quickly, rather than sleep so close to a dead man. He’s not sure he could sleep anyway, having been responsible for killing him. At the moment, the kill was easy. There didn’t seem to be any other choice. Now Jaskier’s hands shake as he walks in the direction he hopes will take him to Dillingen. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all the wonderful comments and kudos!!

Damp spreads over every surface in Dillingen. It’s small, too, and the people all keep their heads down as they go about their business. No one speaks to Jaskier, although some flick their eyes nervously in his direction. No one looks at him long enough to establish eye contact, long enough that he might try and start a conversation. But like any town, there’s a tavern, and in the tavern, there’s a few drunks who are willing to trade a piece of information for another round. 

He’s searching for a man and his daughter, Jaskier explains, one by one, they stole his horse, and he’s heard they’ve been caught for some other misdead and imprisoned here. Did that ring a bell, by any chance? Jaskier was hoping to convince the guard to let him have a “word” with them. The first couple of men grunt and shrug, but the third starts to laugh before Jaskier’s even finishes speaking. 

“That’s a Witcher and his cursed spawn who stole your horse,” the man pats Jaskier’s shoulder pityingly. “They’ll get what’s coming to them, don’t worry.” 

Jaskier has to actively stop himself from stabbing the man with the fork from the table. His self control is mistaken as either shock or disbelief, and the man keeps speaking. “They’re not really human,” he assures him, “Even the girl.” 

You could forgive Jaskier for punching the filthy cocksucker in the gut, quick and hard. He falls forward and chokes in surprise, eyes comically wide as he watches Jaskier get up from the table. 

Jaskier drops a couple of coins on the table. “For your time,” he says calmly, and leaves the tavern. No one else seems to notice them. He can ask for directions from someone else.

***

Jaskier doesn’t have to ask for directions, in the end.

He winds up in the town square by chance, and Geralt is _there_. His hair is matted and grey, and he’s not wearing armor or either of his swords, but it’s absolutely Geralt, penned into a circle with two wolves. All three looked equally pleased by the situation, and even bare-handed Geralt gives off such a menacing presence that the wolves hesitate. There’s iron cuffs around Geralt’s wrists but they aren’t held together, and he holds up his arms defensively as he slowly moves closer to the wolves. 

Jaskier has the strangest feeling, as if someone knew he was coming and got the scene ready just in time. 

Once or twice, Geralt’s eyes flick towards the outside of the arena. Jaskier has never once seen Grealt lose focus like that, but when Jaskier follows his eyes, the reason becomes clear. Among the half a dozen or so soldiers dressed in Nilfgardian livery, there’s a frightened child with blonde hair, vibrant even under a layer of dirt. 

The minutes tick by, and Geralt keeps looking only at Ciri, no matter how hard Jaskier wills him to look out into the crowd. Jaskier doesn’t have a plan, but that hasn’t stopped him yet. 

Okay, Jaskier has a plan, but only when it comes to his beloved lute and also his pack, so he deposits them gently behind an abandoned food cart. With that taken care of, he casually makes his way to the front of the audience. It isn’t difficult. 

“Geralt!” he shouts, and finally, Geralt _looks_ just in time to see the dagger Jaskier has thrown towards him. He catches it rather than getting impaled on it, thank Melitele, In less than a second, Geralt throws the dagger into the throat of the soldier holding Ciri, and by then, everyone else catches up with the turn of events. 

The few audience members scatter immediately, almost like they were waiting for an excuse to get away. The wolves start barking and snapping, and Jaskier retrieves a second dagger from his boot, just in time for the two soldiers who didn’t throw themselves at Geralt to reach him. 

“Geralt!” Jaskier shouts, a little hysterical, “Set them on fire!”

“I can’t!” Geralt roars back, snapping a neck so loudly that it almost echoes. And _oh_ of course, the cuffs. Not iron. Demeritium. 

“Fuck!” Jaskier shouts, barely dodging out of the way from the two swords. Both of the men keep swinging at the same time, getting in each other’s way, but it’s too much to hope that they might off each other by mistake. 

Jaskier tries to get closer to Geralt, despite his instincts screaming at him to run as far as possible in the other direction. Geralt’s up against five men already, normally not a challenge, but Jaskier doesn’t know what else the cuffs might be doing to him, what else have been done to him. And Jaskier can’t fight, not really, not like this, so he hopes for the best and just barely keeps himself from getting run through. 

His heart nearly stops when the two wolves jump out from behind him and tackle his attackers to the ground. Jaskier turns around just in time to see Geralt staring at Ciri. His five opponents are dead around him, and Ciri simply looks confused. 

Jaskier looks back just in time to see the wolves finish with the soldiers, licking blood from their snouts. “They were probably abusing them,” Jaskier decides. The wolves look pleased with themselves. 

Geralt hums, and Ciri still looks like something’s bothering her, but then again, she’s probably been through Hell and back over the past several months. 

“Do we just...leave them?” At this point, the wolves have started lazily examining the bodies. Getting ready for lunch, Jaskier realizes with a shudder. 

“We need to go,” Geralt says, effectively ending any other discussion, and heads in the direction that would take him deeper into the town. 

“Wait,” Jaskier says, only mildly surprised that Geralt does stop and lets Jaskier catch up. He seems braced for something. “Your wrists,” Jaskier presses gently, and waits for Geralt to hold them up. There’s a small keyhole on each. “Do you know which one had the key?” At the same moment, he feels Ciri tug at his sleeve and wordlessly hand him a key ring. A key ring she must have taken off one of the corpses. 

Jaskier pushes that thought down for now, and wordlessly frees Geralt from the shackles. Geralt flexes his hands experimentally, flexes his wrists; his skin is red where the cuffs touched it. Geralt hums again, softly, surprised, when Jaskier takes both of his hands and uses it as an excuse to hold his wrists up to the light. “Later,” Jaskier promises. Later, Jaskier will rub salve into the wounds even though they’re healing now, turning pink. Later, Jaskier will tell Geralt all the things he’s practiced in his head on the way from Oxenfurt, the things he had assumed he’d be saying to an unmarked grave. Later, he’ll do and say a lot of things. 

Right now, Geralt does something smooth and quick with their hands, and now _he’s_ holding Jaskier’s wrists. There’s a look on his face, like he’s happy to see Jaskier, and Jaskier has never seen that look before, which is to say, never on purpose. Geralt lifts one wrist to his lips, slowly, gently presses a kiss into the delicate skin, and Jaskier feels frozen, and wonders if Geralt is under some kind of enchantment. Beside them, Cirilla gasps. 

Before he even realizes what he’s doing, Jaskier has a dagger in his hand, looking for danger. Geralt is doing the same thing, and probably a better job of it. But, Jaskier realizes, she’s looking at _them_. A relief, in some ways, because Jaskier can put the dagger away again. Horrible, in others, because now he feels like he’s been _caught_ by a child. 

“Horses are this way,” Geralt grunts, because of course he would know, and act like he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. Jaskier lets himself fall back a bit while Geralt and Ciri take the lead. Although her strides are smaller, she doesn’t seem to struggle keeping up with Geralt. Geralt, who is making an effort to walk ahead of her, even as his head is tilted down to carry on a conversation with her. Jaskier is, of course, close enough to hear them. 

“You didn’t tell me he was your _boyfriend_.” Ciri says, not bothering to whisper. 

“Witchers don’t have boyfriends,” Geralt also does not whisper back. 

That isn’t a denial, actually, Jaskier realizes, feeling faint. He very much wants to throw a rock at him. 

Geralt zeroes in on Roach as if he’s got some kind of homing beacon attached to her saddle. He takes a moment to check her for injuries, and presses his forehead against hers, and he gets smaller, somehow, his eyes closed, letting her take his weight. The moment passes, and he’s 

There’s several other horses in the stall, and it doesn’t take long for them to saddle up another horse. No soldiers come to bother them, which means Nilfgard was apparently woefully underestimating Geralt. Ciri sits on Roach in front of Geralt, and Jaskier on an even-tempered gelding he decides to call Pegasus in case that encourages Fate to help him run a little faster. 

“Where are we going?” Jaskier asks, and he doesn’t like the way Geralt’s mouth sets into a hard line. He’s fussing with Jaskier’s saddle, like he doesn’t think Jaskier knows how to saddle a horse. He is not technically correct, but it’s been long enough that Jaskier doesn’t mind the fussing. 

“North,” Geralt says evenly. Jaskier can’t help but shudder. Plenty of not great things North. Lettenhove, for one, and of course, even further, the Dragon Mountains. The two places in the world Jaskier planned to avoid at all costs. 

“Oh good, North,” Jaskier says, a little more spitefully than he means. Geralt stops from where he’s tightening a strap and looks at Jaskier. It’s a familiar mix of exasperation and disbelief, and they're not even truly bickering and Jaskier _missed this_. 

Geralt, notably, does not tell him to get lost. “Kaer Morhen,” he says instead, and goes back to his fussing.

“You better hope, for both our sakes, that you do grow wings,” Jaskier whispers to Pegasus. He knows Geralt can hear him, and pretends not to notice when Geralt laughs at him and squeezes his ankle.

***

On the first night, they move for hours, until it’s dark and Ciri is falling asleep in Geralt’s arms. They can’t run the horses very fast for very long, and their tiredness, all of them, forces Geralt to find them a spot for camp. It’s still late, by the time they stop, because Geralt has all sorts of unspoken criteria for what he considers a safe place to rest. They probably could have made it to Brugge tonight, maybe, but it’s probably safer to stay out of the city for now. He trusts Geralt will hear any danger before it’s upon them, and maybe they’ll simply get lucky tonight and nothing will try to kill or eat them. He’s not crossing his fingers for the second part. 

When they’d stopped the first time a few hours previously, Geralt had caught them a few rabbits to cook and eat quickly. Jaskier had not missed how Ciri had eaten with enthusiasm, like maybe she hadn’t seen proper food in some time. Geralt watched her the whole time, and it took unstable nudging for Jaskier to remind him that _he_ had to eat, too. Now, Geralt is tending a small fire and Ciri is asleep a safe distance from it. She’s close enough to feel some of the heat, and she’s bundled so deeply into her bedroll that only a tuft of blond hair peeks out. There’s also a turquoise cloak stretched out over her back. 

After years of tending to Roach, Jaskier takes care of Pegasus easily. But he makes it take longer than it strictly needs to, and then he spends a while just brushing the horse, and then he carefully examines his lute in case she suffered any damage during the fight despite being safely tucked away. And then Geralt says, “Jaskier. Sit the fuck down,” short and sharp, and Jaskier does. 

Geralt is examining the contents of his saddlebags, taking stock, Jaskier assumes. It was luck that the bedrolls and the bags had been attached to Roach when they found her, but who knew what was still in them. Jaskier is watching Ciri, and sometimes, watching Geralt. He thinks he should be tired, and will regret it in the morning, but Geralt is still being strange and accommodating and Jaskier doesn’t want to break the spell. 

“I have to cut her hair,” Geralt says, almost mournfully. “Dirty that cloak, or throw it out.” He doesn’t look up from his potion bottles, but Jaskier can see his face and he looks just as unhappy as he sounds. 

“It’s probably for the best,” Jaskier says lightly, “Short hair can be quite fashionable for some of us.” 

Geralt’s mouth twists. “Hasn’t she been through enough?”

“Haven’t you?” Jaskier counters before he can think better of it. “Here, give me that.” He doesn’t wait and takes the jar Geralt hasn’t put away yet. And Geralt allows him, twisting around so that they face each other, and holding his hands out, palms up.

“You’re being very cooperative,” Jaskier observes, trying not to sound annoyed. He rubs the familiar ointment between his fingers so that it’s warm when he starts to massage it into Geralt’s wrists. He knows how sensitive Geralt can be, to temperature. Just like Jaskier expected, the burns are almost completely healed already, but Geralt submits to the treatment all the same. 

Geralt still doesn’t look at him. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Jaskier says, not looking away from him. 

“I don’t know why you’re here,” Geralt whispers. The kind of thing he used to say to Jaskier all the time, but now, it’s not angry or dismissive. 

“Because you needed me,” Jaskier says, and this new Geralt keeps talking. 

“I do,” he’s agreeing, and, “I didn’t think I did, but I was wrong.” He watches Jaskier’s thumbs draw slow circles on his wrists. 

“Tell me what happened,” Jaskier says, and he expects it when Geralt says nothing. He keeps holding Geralt’s hands while Geralt continues to say nothing, until it’s properly late and Jaskier can’t control himself from yawning. Then Geralt tries to get Jaskier to go to sleep with only a series of expressions that Jaskier can barely see in the low light. Jaskier pointedly looks at Geralt's bedroll, also spread out close to Ciri. He knows Geralt can see him perfectly. 

Jaskier does go to bed, but not because Geralt made him. His bedroll is on Ciri’s other side, a little further away than Geralt’s. Close enough for safety, but not close enough to make her uncomfortable. After a few moments, Jaskier can hear Geralt putting the fire out and presumably lying down as well. 

One nice thing about sleeping outside with Geralt is that no one has to keep watch. Geralt can be on his feet, sword in hand approximately the same second he hears anything out of the ordinary. Which is good, because after twenty years attending musical performances regularly, Jaskier’s very human ears are not always at their best. 

Jaskier falls asleep thinking about how much Geralt has changed now that he has something to live for. 

Geralt wakes them just as the sun begins to rise. He’s terse and unhappy compared to the day before, and Jaskier remembers their conversation by the firelight. When Geralt was so rightfully afraid of making the girl’s life any harder. 

Jaskier practices thinking of her with the name she gave him yesterday, “Fiona,” he gestures to her to come over while Geralt goes over their belongings again. Jaskier knows at this point that Geralt is just killing time, avoiding something he doesn’t want to do. And Jaskier means what he said last night. Geralt’s been through enough, too. 

Jaskier has a pair of scissors in his kit along with various other personal grooming effects, the kind of thing Geralt has mocked him ceaselessly for over the years. Ciri sits quietly at his feet, and for the next half hour Jaskier carefully shortens her hair until it just passes her ears. She’s still young enough to have a boyish figure, so in trousers she’ll pass as a boy for now. Or at least, not herself. 

She doesn’t cry, which is impressive. When he started university, Jaskier had dabbled in long hair of his own until it got tangled in a lovely lady’s very complicated headpiece and a good sized chunk ripped out in the ensuing struggle. Jaskier had no choice but to cut all of it short, and he’d been nearly inconsolable for a week. He then decided to never grow his hair out again lest such a trauma ever befall him again. Ciri, on the other hand, sits stoically and looks straight ahead. When he’s through, she even thanks him.

Before they leave, though, she kneels in front of the scattered clumps of yellow so pale it’s almost white. “Grandmother always said it was just like my mother’s.” 

“It is,” Geralt agrees, a moment before Jaskier does. She gathers the remains of her hair into a little pile, and Geralt ignites it, and they cover the charred spot with wet leaves. 

In the next town, they purchase a new cloak, cheap but solid enough to keep out the sharp wind. There will be plenty of time before they get North enough that they’ll be able to tell if it’s enough to keep out the mountain cold. Jaskier realizes that he’ll probably need warmer clothes too, if he stays with them. 

They don’t stay in the town very long, wary of being followed or tracked. To meet up with Yennefer and her mage friend, they'd have to go backwards, which is unwise, so instead they’ll keep going north for a few days and double back.

When Jaskier mentioned Yennefer, he expected Geralt to be thrilled, but he didn’t expect Ciri’s face to light up, or the little twinge of pain he felt at her reaction. He feels betrayed, although there’s no reason why Ciri shouldn’t get excited about Yennefer. It has nothing to do with whether she likes Jaskier, whether he’s doing a good job of looking out for her. It has nothing to do with him at all. 

Little by little, Ciri tells Jaskier about what happened when Cintra was attacked, how she got lost and almost taken by a doppler. Jaskier adds doppler to the ever growing list of monsters in his head, and decides he particularly hates this one, even though Geralt swears they almost never harm humans. She fills in Geralt’s parts of the story too, about his captivity and his own search to find her. Sometimes, she’ll tell a story in a certain way and Geralt will gently correct her as she goes. Jaskier thinks she’s doing it on purpose. 

On their fourth night together, they cross back over the Yaruga into Sodden and make camp a couple of hours later. Geralt is cleaning his swords, although so far he hasn’t had a need to use them, and Ciri is hovering over a pot of stew gently boiling away. Jaskier is keeping an eye on her, although actually he’s really just going over musical notes in his head and pretending his back doesn’t hurt after less than a week of sleeping on the ground. 

Ciri takes to the chores Geralt gives her without complaint, and Jaskier recognizes that specific determination to prove to Geralt that you can keep up with him. Even though Geralt would never punish her, she can barely contain her joy when Geralt nods approvingly at her achievements. Tonight, she’s absorbed in her work, watching the food with a single-minded intensity.

“I think my grandmother killed innocent people,” she blurts out suddenly, her hands clutched tightly to her chest. Her shoulders are drawn up, too, and in the setting sun, she looks pale. 

Jaskier’s defense of Calanthe is knee-jerk but absolute. “Your grandmother was harsh, but she wouldn’t-”

“I met an elf,” she almost whispers, “He said...his people were slaughtered.” 

Once upon a time, Jaskier would have said he was a lying knife-ear intent on tricking her and slandering her family’s name. But he’s known better for years. It’s foolish to pretend that Calanthe was anything but a bloodthirsty bigot. He’s wondered, a few times, if she would have felt differently about Duny if he didn’t have an animal’s face; if she’d have felt differently about Geralt if he was a human. 

“Humans do terrible things to hold on to what little power they think they have,” Geralt says bluntly, but when Ciri starts to cry, he sets his swords down and sits next to her. She tucks her head into his side and sobs with his arm around her back. It must feel so safe, Jaskier thinks. He thinks about sitting on Geralt’s other side, maybe crying a little himself. 

“You should play something,” Geralt says when Ciri calms down, only occasional sniffles audible from where she hides against his side. Jaskier has long since come to terms with Geralt’s absolute lack of interest in music, so the request is a surprise, but not enough that it stops Jaskier from taking him up on it. He plays a few simple melodies, lullabies without words, keeps his playing quiet and simple, just for the three of them. Eventually they eat, and get into their bedrolls, and Jaskier lays awake for hours trying to wrestle all of his fancy words into some way to tell Cirilla just how deeply sorry he feels. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still no smut, sorry!! Thank you for your lovely comments and kudos. I am very sorry to leave on a cliffhanger. But also I am not sorry at all. 
> 
> Please know this is inspired by and dedicated to Joey Batey in red lipstick, as are the rest of my works.

Then there’s the night Ciri screams so loud and sudden that Jaskier can’t process what it is at first, not until it stops a moment later. He feels dazed at first, maybe in part because he’s just been startled out of a deep sleep on top of the noise, and there’s a strange wetness sliding down his neck. His ear is bleeding. He touches the blood absently, and wonders if he’ll be deaf now. But no, he hears Ciri sobbing into Geralt’s chest while he holds her tightly, without a hint of awkwardness. 

The fire is out, but the moon is high and bright, and Jaskier can see them clearly. He’s reminded of Pavetta’s betrothal, a night he thinks about often. Funny to think that Ciri was there, in a way, present for what was probably the most magic her mother would perform, if she would perform any more at all. Jaskier had never heard about it if she did, anyway. And how foolish Jaskier had been, thinking how nice it would be that Geralt could have a family of his own now. Geralt always does mock him for his optimism. Well. He used to. 

Eventually Ciri’s sobs turn to hiccups and she lets Geralt tuck her back into the blankets. He lies down next to her, propped up on his elbow, and they whisper to one another. Geralt never seems to tire of hearing Ciri’s voice. 

Ciri sits up and looks over to Jaskier, just as he’s finished wiping the blood off his neck with a damp towel. “You should pull your bed closer,” she says, and looks at him expectantly. 

Geralt lifts a shoulder as if to say, “what can you do?”. Even though it’s too dark to really tell, Jaskier imagines that he looks soft, and happy. A good look, 

Jaskier silently obeys, because he’s not sure what else he can say about it. He drags his bedding over a few more inches, and when Ciri rolls her eyes, drags it a couple more, so that she’s properly sandwiched between them. She gets comfortable, turned towards Geralt, who is laying on his back now, looking up at the sky. 

She wiggles a few times and then huffs. Jaskier has to stifle his laugh when she reaches for Geralt’s arm and tugs at it until he gets the hint, rolling over and throwing an arm over her side. Ciri instantly sighs happily, a miniature version of one of Geralt’s rarest hums, and then throws her arm behind her and pats Jaskier in the chest a few times before grabbing the sleeve of his shirt and pulling. After a moment, he acquiesces, and lets her arrange his hand until it overlaps Geralt’s. 

“I’m sorry,” she says then, small and hoarse. “It was an accident. I don’t even know if I can do it on purpose.” 

Geralt grunts in a way that means they’ve had this conversation before, and Jaskier knows that sound, and decides to give him a break. “Nonsense. But it’s good to know you have manners, unlike your- unlike Geralt, here.” At that, Geralt pinches his wrist, and he sort of yelps and tries to yank his hand away, but Geralt is too fast, and suddenly he’s holding hands with Geralt. 

“You should kiss goodnight,” Ciri says, and she sounds _proud_ of herself, magic outburst forgotten. 

“Don’t push it,” Geralt says, squeezing Jaskier’s hand.

***

“Well isn’t this cozy.”

Jaskier blinks awake to see Yennefer hovering above him. Ciri’s arm is thrown across his chest, so he takes her wrist gently and lowers it to the side. Looking over her, he can see that Geralt is already up, probably breaking down camp by the sound of it. And Triss is standing next to Yennefer, looking cheerful despite the early hour. It’s amazing how quickly he can take in a situation after being awakened so unexpectedly. He has had plenty of practice. “What are you doing here?” he asks quietly. He’s guilty at the idea of waking Ciri up after the night she had. 

Yennefer looks over at Ciri. “I heard her.” When Jaskier gets up, Yennefer immediately kneels in his place and gently touches the girl’s shoulder. “It’s time to wake up, dear heart,” she murmurs, and there’s no other way to describe it but as _parental_ , and Jaskier wonders at her voice. He never imagined she could have such open love for another living being. 

How lucky, Jaskier thinks, for Cirilla now to have a third set of parents that cherish her. It’s foolish to feel jealous of a child who has suffered more than any child should. Still, Jaskier can’t stop thinking about how even just the one set of parents he’d been given had failed him. He hopes to Melitele that Yennefer and Geralt can be what Ciri needs. 

He imagines a portrait of the three of them, how severe they would look, imposing. A proper family. A stranger might think Ciri had only ever theirs, the perfect distillation of Geralt and Yennefer. No one deserves it as much as Geralt, and then Ciri right after, and Jaskier has come to learn that Yennefer will be more than up to the task of giving it to them. 

They pack quickly. Yennefer and Triss explain that they believe that Ciri reached out for Yennefer when she screamed, because none of the other mages could hear her. Yennefer had been able to figure out the source of the sound, and had opened a portal several hours walk away. She and Triss had apparently made the walk without the aid of any magic. Other mages could tell when a portal was opened, some could trace the other side of it even after it was long closed. Now they need to travel as far away as they can without the benefit of another portal. Triss offers to stay behind and portal all over the Continent for a few weeks, to create 

a false trail. 

It makes the most sense to leave now, Jaskier reasons. He knows that Geralt and Ciri are safe, and together, and with the help of Yennefer, most likely to stay that way. They don’t need him tagging along anymore, someone for them to have to protect. 

“I don’t suppose you’d like to make your first stop Oxenfurt?” Jaskier asks her as they prepare to part ways. Even if he inadvertently leads Nilfgaard along with him, well, Dykstra and company are waiting for them already. 

Before Triss can respond, Geralt’s forehead creases into a deep frown.. Like he’s offended, and hurt by it too. “You're leaving?”

The question takes Jaskier aback, and for a moment he’s just stunned. “Do you not want me too?” he asks, certain he’s misunderstood. 

“It isn’t safe,” and he’s pleading with Jaskler, even if the words themselves are matter-of-fact. It’s true that it’s no secret that Jaskier is the Witcher’s bard. 

“Stay,” Yennefer says, not a question at all. 

There’s a charge in the air. Jaskier can feel it in the way the four people are looking at him. “Please don’t go!” Ciri bursts out, running to him and throwing her legs around him, sobbing. “I’m sorry!” 

Jaskier carefully steps back from Ciri and crouches down so they’re eye to eye. “You have done absolutely nothing wrong, do you understand me?” he asks, firm but gentle. “You are a pleasure to travel with, and I’d love nothing more than to keep doing it.” Behind her, Geralt looks relieved. 

They say goodbye to Triss, and Jaskier tries not to seem too worried about her. He has no doubt she can handle herself, even alone, but he doesn’t like it. He feels protective of her, he realizes, like fels for Essi and Priscilla, and even, god’s-forbid, Valdo Marx sometimes. He hardly knows her at all and he would absolutely kill anyone who tried to hurt her. 

The three of them take turns on the two horses, although Geralt ends up volunteering to walk most of the time. He keeps a few paces ahead of them, on the lookout, and Yennefer stays a little towards the back, and Jaskier and Ciri pass the time discussing music. She’s eager to listen and learn, because her grandmother kept her away from any type of music lesson when it became clear she inherited her mother’s vocal gifts. He decides to teach her to train her voice, because it certainly won’t make things _worse_ , and maybe she’ll get a better handle on her chaos. 

A couple of days pass. When they take breaks to eat or rest, Yennefer and Geralt speak urgently together, and sometimes they communicate only with their minds, which is actually incredibly creepy. They decide for certain to go to Kaer Morhen where Geralt’s brothers can help them, too. At the very least, there will be shelter. 

Ciri is silent one afternoon, wrestling with something but not saying anything until she loses the battle with herself. They’re resting by a river, the horses drinking lazily and the sun close to setting. They’ll walk on again for a few hours in the dark, although Ciri will certainly be asleep in someone’s lap by then. “Jaskier,” she says, biting her lip and looking at the ground, “Your ear…Did I hurt you?” 

“Well, um, I don’t think so?” he starts. It’s embarrassing, because he _has_ been losing his hearing, slowly, over time, and he can’t really tell if things have been better or worse before her outburst. Most of the time he couldn’t tell the difference, anyway, could hear people when they spoke to him, could hear himself play and sing. 

“What do you mean, you don’t think so?” Geralt asks, an unexpected full sentence. He’s sitting on the ground nearby with Yennefer, and Jaskier didn’t realize they were paying him any attention. He should have known better, honestly. 

“Well,” Jaskier waves his hand, “It’s not a big deal. Plenty of musicians have trouble hearing sometimes. Me, for example, since University, but it’s fine. Truly. Also, I’m also very distractible. It’s probably that.” 

Ciri looks unsure, and Jaskier covers her hand with his own. “You haven’t hurt me, I swear it.” 

Later that night, when they finally stop for the evening. Geralt, surprisingly, has more questions. How long has this been going on? Why hasn’t Jaskier said anything before? And while Jaskier tries to deflect the questions, it’s clear that Geralt can tell, and isn’t happy about it. Serves him right, for a change. 

Yennefer, at least, makes sure there’s nothing serious wrong with him, and from then on, Geralt always makes sure Jaskier can see his mouth when he speaks. And even though it’s not strictly necessary, it’s sweet. 

***

Geralt is sweet now, and Yennefer is kind. There was a time, not so long ago, that Jaskier would have seen their behavior as either the sign of a curse, or a cruel sort of joke. Their new behavior makes a stark contrast to the way they both (mainly Geralt) used to treat him. He tries not to dwell on it. Tries to pretend it’s not a bitter surprise when it should be pleasant. Geralt’s finally being nice to him, and Jaskier never had the chance to properly yell at him and now it just seems cruel to bring any of it up. 

When they stop in a town, Jaskier and Ciri enter first as father and son, stabling the horses for the night and getting a bedroom with two beds when it’s available. Then, Yennefer will portal herself and Geralt in, magically soundproof the room, and they can spend the night in comfort, for a change. Some nights, Jaskier will play a little for coin and the odd rumor that the White Wolf’s bard still traveled without him. Some nights, Geralt will find a contract, and sometimes Yennefer accompanies him and sometimes she doesn’t. Most nights, Ciri is bored, practically crawling out of her skin. For a couple of nights, Jaskier tries to teach her Gwent, but she’s not interested in learning something new, and keeps scowling and throwing cards on the table. 

Finally, out of options, Jaskier improvises. They spend so much time with music on the road, so that’s out, and by that logic, so is any type of reading material Jaskier might have as well. Which leaves cosmetics, a couple of pieces of nicer jewelry he keeps for the right occasion, and very little else but clothes. 

So Jaskier and Ciri play dress-up. At first, he thinks she’s going to roll her eyes and decide she’s too old to play with the kind of determination only a child can make. But her eyes light up at the display he lays out on his and Geralt’s bed, and she runs her fingers over the various items. All of his dresses and corsets are left behind at Oxenfurt, but his prettiest chemise falls down past Ciri’s calves. She selects a turquoise doublet and shrugs it over her shoulders. Then she sits in the lone chair in the room and sits patiently while Jaskier paints her face. She plays idly with the decorations in the fabric of the doublet while he works. 

Jaskier also always has a mirror, which he holds up patiently for Ciri to see his work. Her short hair sticks out in little waves in every direction, and he’s complimented the doublet she chose with a light blue shadow over her eyelids, a little bit of blush on her cheekbones, and a pale pink paint on her lips. She seems pleased with the overall effect, grinning at her reflection. “You should do yours,” Ciri suggests, turning the mirror on his face. 

He raises an eyebrow at her, but she shrugs. “What else are they for?” she says, and picks out a doublet for him to wear. It’s cobalt blue, and there’s a tiny bloodstain at the hem of one sleeve, but you have to be looking for it to even notice. While Ciri roots around in the jewelry, Jaskier draws one perfect wing on each eyelid with kohl and gives himself a dark red lip, because why not, Ciri’s right. What else are they for? The red’s a bit like the color of the bloodstain on his sleeve, when it was fresh. 

Just as he finishes, there’s a familiar displacement of air as Geralt and Yennefer portal in. “Welcome back,” Jaskier says, turning to greet them without thinking about it. 

Yennefer tilts her head a little and Geralt openly stares at him. Jaskier feels heat rising to his face. His face, currently done up by his own practiced hand. Geralt must think he looks absurd.

“You look…” Geralt starts, and then, Melitele help him, keeps _staring_ until Yennefer elbows him in the side. He looks away sharply. “You look good.” 

“Oh,” Jaskier says, surprised. “You like it?” _Interesting_ , he thinks. Surely he must have misheard him. 

Geralt nods, hesitant. 

“Do you like mine?” Ciri asks, and Jaskier starts a bit because he’d forgotten anyone else was there. 

“You’re doing a wonderful job with what little he gave you, darling,” Yennefer says, smirking at Jaskier. “Try not to remember anything he “taught” you.” She even gives “taught” little air quotes. 

She spends the rest of the night teaching Ciri about make-up, while Geralt cleans and polishes his swords, and Jaskier feels like the room is so small, too small while he sits on the edge of the bed. But he doesn’t clean his face yet, and Geralt looks at him sometimes, and Jaskier looks right back. 

***

Ciri gets other lessons from Yennefer, about chaos, and nature, and Ciri listens and watches and under no circumstances attempts to practice using her own chaos yet. She’s clearly unhappy with that rule, always asking and insisting that she can handle it. Ciri comes to Jaskier fuming, arms crossed and kicking stones, angrily ranting even though she knows Jaskier can’t do anything about it. She won’t even look at Geralt or Yennefer sometimes. Yennefer takes it in stride, but Geralt always looks _stricken_ when he thinks Ciri is unhappy and even more so when he thinks she doesn’t like him. Jaskier doesn’t have the heart to tell him that Ciri won’t like him, sometimes, but that generally means he’s doing the right thing. 

Yennefer begins to give Ciri make-up lessons in place of magic one night, and something shifts in the air. Unlike magic, Ciri can get as much hand-on practice as she wants, using Yennefer, Jaskier, and herself as a canvas. They start waking up with Geralt in the mornings so they have time to do each other’s faces before they have to break camp. Yennefer casts a simple enchantment over them, so the sweat and dirt of the day won’t ruin their hard work. Geralt does not acknowledge it at all, not even when he and Jaskier spend half a morning in a crowded market, and Jaskier forgets that he’s wearing bright green eyeshadow even when several people look at him a little too long. 

Outside of Vizima, they’re ambushed by a pack of barghests and Yennefer bets that she can kill more than Geralt, and if she does, he has to do whatever she wants. He rolls his eyes at her, but he’s clearly confident in himself because he nods. 

Jaskier rolls his eyes at them both, standing behind them and holding Ciri close under one arm. His other arm brandishes his lute case in case any of the dogs come too close. 

There’s a sound like a muffled thunderclap, and several barghests catch fire immediately and devastatingly. Geralt easily dispatches the remaining two, and then scowls at Yennefer. She shrugs. “Trying out something new.” 

Jaskier assumes she was joking about the bet until they make camp, and Yennefer starts arranging various pots and jars and little brushes. “Time to pay up,” she says sweetly to Geralt.

Geralt seems to realize what she’s up to the same moment Jaskier does. “Yenn,’ he growls, at the same moment Jaskier’s heart skips a beat. 

“Please Geralt?” Ciri says, and Jaskier watches his resolve crumble along with his stern face. Wordlessly, he sits in front of Yennefer’s little display, and sighs in defeat. Ciri and Yennefer high-five behind his head, but then neither of them moves to sit down across from him. 

“Jaskier,” Yennefer says even sweeter than before, “Why don’t you do it?” She sounds innocent, somehow. When Ciri repeats the question, Jaskier realizes that he’s just as susceptible to her face as Geralt is. 

Ciri and Yennefer high-five again. Jaskier can see them clearly. 

Geralt has always been a man of his word, and he sits still, eyes closed, trusting Jaskier, apparently, and offering no input of his own. Of course. At first, Jaskier thinks he’ll just pile on as many colors in as many places as he can, so that he looks like a parody. But then that feels like a waste, especially because Geralt isn’t going to like it anyway, so Jaskier decides to take it seriously. 

Well, as seriously as anyone could take putting makeup on Geralt of Rivia. 

Geralt’s skin is so pale and his hair so white that Jaskier sticks to a straightforward plan: a little bit of color on his cheeks, a simple dark eyeliner. And red for his lips. The same red Jaskier favors, the red that looks like blood. Geralt’s face twitches almost imperceptibly each time Jaskier comes close with his little brush, almost as if he’s making an effort not to react. 

The effect, overall, is _devastating_. Geralt looks like himself but more, still tightly coiled danger, still gorgeous, but different. Jaskier reminds himself, a mantra in his mind, that there’s a child nearby so he doesn’t do anything ridiculous like jump Geralt right there and then. His resolve, always tenuous, comes as close to snapping as ever. He should have gone back to Oxenfurt.

“Now you do Jaskier,” Ciri, declares after she and Yennefer suitably ooh and ahh over Jaskier’s handiwork.

Geralt looks at Jaskier, head cocked to the side questioningly. Jaskier imagines closing his eyes, still only a few scant centimeters away from Geralt, hearing him breathe, brush moving against his hyper-sensitive skin. Geralt doesn’t even pretend he doesn’t know how after watching the three of them for weeks on end. 

“Oh no, I don’t think so,” Jaskier says weakly, and starts digging around for a clean rag. “Alright Geralt, you were a good sport but you can go ahead and take that off now!” He even wets the rag for him before thrusting it towards him. 

Geralt doesn’t take it. “Do you not like it?”

“Do I not…” Jaskier mumbles to himself, “Of course I do, I fucking did it.” He shakes his head, wondering when he lost control of the situation so completely. “I like it a lot,” he says bluntly, because there’s nothing else he can say. 

“Oh,” Geralt looks relieved, for some reason, “I like yours too, when you’re wearing it.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Yennefer shouts, “You sound like betrothed youths, do you know that?” She holds up her hand before Jaskier can defend himself. “Ciri and I are going for a walk. We won’t be able to hear you, so try not to get killed by anything while you’re out here, okay? Figure out whatever this,” she waves at them vaguely, “Is, and do it in the next hour.” She softens. “Seriously, I can’t believe the two of you haven’t talked yet about what happened on the mountain.” 

“It’s been on purpose, I assure you,” Jaskier says, and tries not to see how Geralt cringes. “It’s all in the past. Water under the bridge, as they say.” 

“You’re a terrible liar, Buttercup,” Yennefer says. “Always have been. An hour,” she warns, and then leads Ciri away from the camp, flicking her hand back presumably to make it so they can no longer hear him and Geralt. Ciri looks over her shoulder a few times, and it’s too dark to quite make out her expression. 

Jaskier does make Geralt wipe the make-up off, but only because there’s no way he’s going to be able to have this conversation otherwise. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to post this sooner but a pipe broke in my apartment and I could barely think the past couple of days let alone edit. But! Here we are! The last chapter, and an epilogue to round things out. Thank you for once again clicking my absurdly long title, reading, commenting and leaving a kudos. It means more than you know. Enjoy!

By now, at least an hour has passed, and Yennefer and Ciri aren’t back yet, which means Yennefer was _lying_. 

“It’s barely been ten minutes,” Geralt says gruffly, bare-faced again thank Melitele. “It’s dangerous out there.” Abruptly, Jaskier realizes that Geralt isn’t telling him off for fidgeting. He’s genuinely worried about his daughter and his..? His Yennefer. 

“I think Yennefer proved earlier she’s more than capable,” Jaskier says dryly, thinking how the bet was her idea, and how funny he’d thought it would be if Geralt lost. “Relax,” he says genuinely, scooting over on their make-shift bench so he can pat Geralt on the shoulder. 

Geralt looks at the space where Jaskier’s hand meets his shoulder. Jaskier tries to pull his hand back, but Geralt grabs it and holds it in place. “I didn’t think you’d ever touch me again,” he admits quietly. 

“Oh,” Jaskier says, watching Geralt intertwine their fingers. “I suppose I haven’t really.” It makes him feel guilty, imagining Geralt alone in the months before he found Ciri. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Geralt says harshly, “I deserved it. I’m just being selfish now.” His hand drops back into his lap. 

Jaskier can’t help making a small whine of frustration. “Be selfish,” he begs, hand still on his shoulder, probably looking like a lunatic, “For once in your life, be fucking selfish.” 

Geralt kisses him. Jaskier freezes, reflexively grabbing fistfuls of Geralt’s shirt, and then all the tension melts out of him at once as he kisses back. His brain always short-circuits from a good kiss, and _oh_ this is a _good_ kiss, it’s _Geralt’s_ lips pressing firmly against his, it’s _Geralt’s_ tongue licking across the seam of Jaskier’s mouth. Jaskier lets him in. 

All he can think about is how good it is, what a relief, the sudden giddiness of wish fulfillment. The wishes he’d made to the djinn all those years ago had been so utterly wrong, he realizes now. If he ever meets a djinn again, god forbid, he’s going to wish for one more kiss with Geralt, and then another, and then another. 

Jaskier pulls back finally, panting, overwhelmed. He’s half-hard just from the rush. “There, that wasn’t so bad,” he says. Geralt huffs and presses their foreheads together.

“No,” he agrees, and kisses Jaskier again, harder, devouring him. It’s hard to get manhandled at Jaskier’s size, but Geralt moves him around easily, wrapping a huge hand around his waist and urging him into his lap. Jaskier slots into place, his thigh pressed into Geralt’s cock, and Geralt slips a hand up his chemise to play with the hair on his chest, catching his nipples just often enough to tease. It’s maddening. It’s glorious. Geralt is so _gentle,_ although Jaskier hadn’t imagined him to be any other way. 

It’s nice not to worry about something like gravity while he sucks on Geralt’s lower lip and arches his hips shamelessly, as much as he can with Geralt trying to hold him still. 

“You said to be selfish,” Geralt says, hesitating, while Jaskier sucks underneath his jaw. One of his hands has moved to hover at the ties of Jaskier’s trousers, and Jaskier just manages not to shout his enthusiasm.

“Yes,” Jaskier nods, cupping Geralt’s face in his hand. Tries to keep his voice measured, knows how easily Geralt might scare away. “Take whatever you want.” 

“Not just tonight,” Geralt says, his voice like gravel. “I want you...every night.”

“As many nights as you’ll have me, witcher,” Jaskier murmurs, his thumb brushing over Geralt’s lips. 

Geralt hums and his tongue darts out, licking Jaskier’s thumb. Then he turns his attention to Jaskier’s trousers again, deftly untying them and pulling them and Jaskier’s smallclothes down past his hips. Jaskier pulls off his chemise and tosses it somewhere away, and he really hopes their hour isn’t close to up yet. 

Geralt’s hand envelopes his cock and strokes lightly, a little bit like he’s savoring the feel of Jaskier in his hand. It’s not a surprise that he’s eager, and forward, and demanding, not since he’s been watching Geralt fight and fuck his way across the continent for twenty years. It makes Jaskier light-headed, almost, when all that attention centers on him. 

“Stand up,” Geralt instructs, and Jaskier does. Geralt swallows down his whole cock, moaning as Jaskier can’t help but thrust into his mouth. After a few minutes, he's holding Jaskier in place again, this time keeping him from collapsing when his knees start to shake. 

“Your mouth is so good,” he babbles, resting his hand on the back of Geralt’s head. Geralt’s eyes are closed, like he’s enjoying himself, sucking Jaskier from root to tip, swirling his tongue just right. He plays with Jaskier’s balls for a moment, feather light, and then slips a finger into his mouth beside Jaskier’s cock. A moment later, that finger presses gently at Jaskier’s hole.

“We don’t have time for that,” Jaskier scolds, but spreads his legs a little further to let him in. How could he not? Geralt starts to time his finger strokes to the bob of his head, and Jaskier feels caught helplessly in between. Every few strokes, he finds the spot that makes Jaskier moan, and then he starts finding it faster. Jaskier barely has time to gasp out a warning before he’s coming down Geralt’s throat. 

“Fuck,” Geralt stands up quickly and rips his leather pants down so quickly the laces snap. Jaskier sinks to his knees on the dirt, but he forgives Geralt while he watches him pump his cock hard and fast until he comes on Jaskier’s face and chest. He hovers over Jaskier for a moment, coaxing a couple more spurts to add to the mess on Jaskier’s body. Then he pulls his pants back up and sits heavily where he had been right before all of this started.

He and Jaskier stare at one another for a few moments before Jaskier gets up and sinks into Geralt’s lap. Despite the mess, Geralt draws him close, kissing Jaskier’s throat, the underside of his jaw, his cheekbone, finally resting their foreheads together. 

“Twenty years ago,” Jaskier says, casually, “I wrote in my journal that I’d fuck you. I can show you next time we’re in Oxenfurt.” 

Geralt laughs, and smacks a sudden, delightful kiss to Jaskier’s lips. “Trust me, I believe you.” 

A little while later, after they’ve cleaned up and pulled their bedrolls together, Geralt is wrapped around Jaskier’s lower half and letting Jaskier pet his hair. Yennefer and Ciri still aren’t back, but the night is clear and the moon is bright and it’s the perfect night to lose time looking at the stars. He’s looking at them now, too, and listening to Geralt breathe. 

If he can hear Geralt breathing, that means Geralt is relaxed, and Jaskier is relaxed, too. And getting sleepy, warm and coming down from almost euphoria. He’s still going to get mad at Geralt all the time, and Geralt is probably always going to be a little bit frustrated with him at any given time. But that’s a tomorrow problem.

“I should have stayed,” he muses out loud, “Next time you say something dreadful and terrible to me I’ll kick your arse and then we’ll fuck it out.” 

Geralt’s turns tense. 

“I know,” Jaskier soothes, skimming his fingers over Geralt’s back. “You said you were sorry. I’m just going to have to get it out of my system.” Geralt hums into his chest, still uneasy. “It might come as a surprise to you, after having just come down your throat and all, but I am quite fond of you, Geralt of Rivia. One might say I’ve been in love with you for two decades.” 

“Dramatic,” Geralt mutters and bites gently at Jaskier’s bare chest. “Hardly any time at all.” 

“Is that a challenge?” Jaskier huffs, pretending to be offended, “I’ll be in love with you two decades more, just you wait.” 

Geralt shifts so that they’re face to face. “I saw you first,” he counters, “Singing the bloody worse thing I’ve heard in my life.” 

Jaskier punches his arm lightly. “So you’re saying you loved me first, despite my horrible singing?” 

At the word ‘love’, Geralt’s eyes widen slightly. “Yes?” he says, less like he’s not sure, and more like he’s regretting his life choices. 

Too bad, he’s stuck with Jaskier now. “Well then, go on,” he prods, because he can be selfish, too. “Say it.” 

Geralt looks momentarily confused, and then he sighs in realization. But there isn’t an ounce of regret in his voice when he says, “I love you, Jaskier,” and kisses the next words right out of his mouth. 

***

They go to Oxenfurt, so that Jaskier can pick up some things, because he’s not really sure when he’ll be coming back. He also sells a good bit too, clothes he’ll no longer wear, books he’ll never read again. The most important of his belongings that he can’t take with him will stay in his house, and he’s entrusted Priscilla and Essi to look after the place for him. It’s practically their house now anyway, in that they had decided to move into it the last time he skipped town, the bloody squatters. He wishes dearly that he knew for certain if he’d ever see them again. 

He and Geralt have been staying together, and Yennefer and Ciri are at Jaskier’s house. He’s probably going to regret letting them meet his friends, but Ciri had proclaimed that Jaskier and Geralt were being “gross” and insisted on splitting up as soon as they got into town. Yennefer didn’t seem to mind parting either, probably because she’s an adult and understands and wants to give a new couple privacy. And also maybe because Jaskier and Geralt have been a little gross.

Geralt will hold his hand now, in markets and sometimes when it gets late enough to start thinking about setting up camp for the night. At first, they had tried to sleep together on one side of the fire while Ciri and Yennefer slept on the other, but it was _torture_ to just lie there and feel Geralt next to him _._ Jaskier woke up more and more sour each morning, half-hard and unrested, edgy and short-tempered the rest of the day. Finally, one afternoon when they stopped for lunch, Geralt dragged Jaskier by the arm deeper into a thicket of trees. 

(“You smell so _loud_ ,” Geralt groaned, backing Jaskier into a tree and crowding over him. “Like some kind of incubus, always wet and ready to go.” Jaskier wanted to protest, but it was true, and his cockhead was already shiny with precome as it disappeared in and out of Geralt’s fist. Jaskier could only pant and lick his lips and wonder how long Geralt has been _smelling_ him like that. 

“Not always,” he tried, letting out a low, shuddery moan when Geralt slipped his own cock into his fist and began to jerk them off together. “It’s just you, ah fuck,” he whined when Geralt’s hand picked up speed, “You just look so damnably good all the time.” He muffled the rest of his moans into Geralt’s arm, while Geralt somehow managed to keep them both up and get them both off without losing his composure. And then he’d kissed Jaskier, long and indulgent, like nothing else mattered in the world.)

So they’d arranged the bedrolls that night into one big pile, with Ciri in the middle, Geralt and Yennefer on either side of her, and Jaskier on the other side of Yennefer. She gets talkative around Ciri, the same way Geralt does, answering all of her questions even as it gets later into the night and the questions get stranger. Ciri even managed to get her to talk about Triss, feigning innocence so obvious that Jaskier can’t believe Yennefer doesn’t see right through it. Maybe she does, but she secretly wants to talk about Triss with a far-away look in her eyes. Sometimes, when Jaskier wakes up just as dawn begins to creep over the horizon, he sees Geralt staring at him with that same look. 

In Oxenfurt, they spend a couple of days making good use of Jaskier’s bed while they can and getting his affairs in order in between. And if he doesn’t mention that the last one of those affairs is a party at the tavern a few minutes walk from his flat, well, it’s only because he knows Geralt would hate being forced to go. 

“Tomorrow morning,” he promises, “We can go as early as you’d like. But this will be our last chance to rest properly for a long time.” He doesn’t even bother inviting Geralt, hoping that will sway his case. They weren’t planning on leaving until the morning, anyway, and he really only wants to make a brief appearance, anyway. 

“So you’re going to a party. Without me.” Geralt asks flatly. Jealous, Jaskier realizes, his heart fluttering. 

“Don’t worry, love,” he licks his lips, “I only want you.” He fucks Geralt into the mattress to prove it, and then leaves him as he falls into a sated sleep. He looks so peaceful and content that Jaskier almost stays, but he has something else to do.

The Inkwell is the sort of tavern that attracts professors and so it’s usually a more sedate place to spend an evening. Tonight, the building is packed with dozens of people, and while most of them _are_ professors, they’re all drunk and cheerful and loud. 

Valdo is at the center of a large group, telling them some kind of story, basking in being the center of attention. It is his going away party, after all. “Jaskier’s here!” someone shouts, and a few people try to catch his eye. 

Priscilla comes out of nowhere and presses a mug of ale into his chest. “We didn’t think you were coming!” 

“As if I would miss the chance to say goodbye to Valdo Marx forever.” He speaks a little too loud, and Valdo looks up when he hears his name. When he sees Jaskier his eyes narrow. 

Jaskier puts a hand on his hip and raises an eyebrow. A challenge. 

A beat later and they’re hugging and laughing. Jaskier’s not even embarrassed to realize that he is actually going to miss his archenemy. This, more than anything else, feels like a chapter of his life closing. 

“What made you decide to go home?” Jaskier asks when they pull apart. 

Valdo shrugs. “It’s home. And I missed it.” 

Jaskier nods slowly and thinks of Geralt curled up in his bedspread. “Well,” he claps Valdo on the shoulder and squeezes once, “I wish you a peaceful retirement.” 

“I didn’t say I was retiring!” Valdo insists, but Jaskier is already walking away, not even turning around as he waves goodbye. 

***

They’re a week from Oxenfurt when roughly ten bandits try to ambush them. Geralt can sense them even before they decide to attack, but there’s no way to tell if they’re Nilfgaard, so leaving them alive is out of the question. Jaskier and Ciri hide behind a tree in their customary position and watch the fight.

So far, Geralt and Yennefer have been able to achieve victory handily against any person or creature who tried to fight them, but it’s still just to the two of them against ten at least somewhat competent humans. Gerald uses a blast of aard to throw back several of them at once while Yennefer breaks one of their neck’s with a flick of her wrist. 

By chance, Ciri looks up at Jaskier and gasps, which gives him enough time to turn around and see the bandit raising a sword in his direction. He just barely ducks out of the way in time, dirt spraying when the sword hits the spot on the ground he had only just vacated. He spins around as fast as he can, plunging his dagger into the neck of the man as he swings at empty space. Jaskier’s aim is true; there was no other choice. The man falls to the ground clutching at his neck, and Jaskier holds his bloody dagger pointed ahead, one arm raised up protectively towards Ciri behind him. 

Jaskier knows objectively what happens when Ciri gets scared enough to scream. There’s no one alive, apparently, who’s lived through it. It’s been unspoken between Yennefer, Geralt, and Jaskier, the threat of what could happen if Ciri really gets going. And of course, Jaskier would do anything in the world to keep her safe and alive. Both reasons give him the strength to hold off the rest of the men who attack them, fighting quick and dirty. 

When the last bandit’s dead, Jaskier drops his dagger to the ground and checks Ciri. Although she’s got a spray of blood across her cheek, she seems only a little shaken. Before Jaskier can really get a good look at her, Yennefer is looking her up and down for injuries with an almost manic precision. She’s wiping Ciri’s face with a handkerchief when Jaskier hears a heavy set of footfalls behind him. He tenses, but turns around and prepares for Geralt to dress him down. 

Geralt hugs Jaskier so tightly that Jaskier thinks his spine pops a little, and then kisses Jaskier like he needs to prove to himself that Jaskier is here. Jaskier melts into the kiss, like always, wondering in the back of his mind if it’s wrong that he’s not making sure Geralt is okay. If he wasn’t okay, Jaskier reasons, he wouldn’t be sucking on Jaskier’s lower lip both wanton and ridiculous. For good measure, and because the others aren’t watching them, Jaskier squeezes Geralt’s ass, bruise-tight, and swallows the little hitching sigh Geralt makes into his mouth. They’re still a long way from Kaer Morhen, a long way from privacy, and for now they have to survive on these moments, few and far between. 

Geralt holds Jaskier against his chest for a long moment. For years and years Jaskier had wanted to be held by his witcher like this, and had accepted it would never happen, and now it happens all the time. It makes Jaskier’s heart flutter, along with the post-fight adrenaline rushing through his veins. He’d lived, and he had a doublet drenched in blood to show for it. 

Geralt does not scold him for fighting, or critique his skill, and when Jaskier registers a dull pain in his bicep and realizes oh, that’s a knife wound, Geralt doesn’t even get mad at him. He rips out the bottom of Jaskier’s ruined doublet and wraps a makeshift bandage around his arm, and he insists on walking approximately two inches behind Jaskier at all times for the rest of the day. It’s as endearing as it is irritating, because Jaskier is _fine_. He’s been tossed around before and gotten more than just a cut for his troubles, and this is nothing compared to that. 

They find a stream, water moving along at a brisk pace. Jaskier sits on a rock and takes off his stained chemise and let’s Geralt clean and bandage his wound. No stitches, thank Melitele. Jaskier hates how calmly Geralt moves the needle dispassionately in and out of Jaskier’s skin, just the same as when he has to do it to himself. Jaskier’s hands shake too much at the idea of causing Geralt any more pain, even when it will help the most in the long run. 

Geralt also washes the blood off of Jaskier’s hands and arms, and then his own. He’s not injured at all today, miraculous and unexpected, and when he washes his face in the stream, he doesn’t even look tired. A little tattoo in the back of his mind reminds him they’re going to have to move on soon, threatening to ruin the moment. Jaskier ignores it and watches Geralt drink water from his cupped hands, and tries not to feel the afternoon slipping away. 

They keep walking. They will be walking for a long time, walking and praying they make it all the way up north. Of course, none of them actually believe in a higher power, not even Ciri, and so they end up relying on themselves to keep pushing forward. Jaskier is tired, more than he’s ever been in his life, although his legs have fallen back into the habit of long days beside Geralt. At night he falls into the kind of sleep that feels not quite like awake, but close enough, and wakes up to the sunrise. Sometimes, when the path ahead is long and empty, Yennefer will take point, with Ciri in the middle, and Geralt and Jaskier will lag behind, holding hands. There’s no way of telling what lies ahead, if they’ll even make it all the way to their destination. So far Jaskier has been lucky, and he wonders how much time he’s stolen simply because he won’t allow an alternative where his family gets hurt. It will be worth it, Jaskier is certain, as long as he lives long enough to see them all safely to Kaer Morhen. After all, it’s not like Geralt is going to give _him_ up without a fight, either.

Epilogue

Kaer Morhen is so big that Jaskier thinks it could take days, even weeks to explore the whole place. Exploration, though, is off the table. More than half of the keep has been empty for years, and any of the disused rooms might be hiding broken old equipment or some other hidden danger. They didn’t lack for space, not for at most ten people living in the Keep at any given time. Before Ciri, it would have just been Geralt and his brothers, and only Vesemir there year-round. The old wolf pretends to be weary of the constant company, but Jaskier can see him warming to Cirilla like she’s his granddaughter. And maybe she is. 

Jaskier does his share of chores, the ones a human can manage, and he continues music lessons with Ciri. At night, he cuddles up to Geralt under a mountain of furs and they make up for twenty years of sexual tension. Geralt begs for forgiveness with a burning kiss on the pulse beating fast in Jaskier’s neck, with finger-shaped bruises scattered over Jaskier’s hips and thighs. Jaskier knows Geralt is sorry because he holds Jaskier’s hand at a moment’s notice, because he makes sure Jaskier dresses warmly enough for the cold. When Jaskier misses the feel of performing to a crowd enough that he feels irritated and unpleasant, Geralt makes everyone present that night sit and watch Jaskier play. 

It’s awkward at first, the wrong energy of an engaged crowd, but Ciri pays rapt attention to him as always, and Geralt seems genuinely interested in hearing him, too. So Jaskier plays for real, and by the time he’s finished his little concert, a few people have started singing along. When Jaskier begins the opening notes of Toss a Coin, Geralt groans audibly and actually picks Jaskier up and throws him over his shoulder, catching the lute effortlessly as it tumbles out of Jaskier’s hands. 

Most nights, he, Geralt, and Yennefer tuck Ciri into bed, and she accepts a kiss on the forehead from all three of them before they turn out the light. Most children her age would feel too old for that type of thing, maybe, but she seems to sense that the rest of her childhood has passed too soon without her consent. Sometimes Jaskier wakes up at dawn out of habit, and he’s alone, because Geralt has spent the night on Ciri’s floor, warding off nightmares. Sometimes, Jaskier is the one she seeks out in her discomfort, or Yennefer. 

During the day, they take turns imparting various lessons on Ciri. When she trains in the courtyard with Geralt, or one of his brothers, Jaskier can watch from a safe distance on a low wall. Occasionally Yennefer joins him, and they watch, mostly in silence. When they’re not trading petty insults with one another, they tend to fall into a companionable silence. Triss joins them at Kaer Morhen and it turns out she’s the kind of friend Jaskier has been sorely missing since he left Essi and Priscilla behind at Oxenfurt. 

A year ago, Jaskier had been so certain he would spend the rest of his days teaching and then retiring to the coast. He could have been happy without Geralt, safe. But he wouldn’t have been whole. And he also would have gotten quite bored with all that time, as Yennefer admitted she’d done a little bit more than just heal Jaskier from the djinn’s curse, all those years ago. Because of the sad, guilty look on Geralt’s face, the same one he wears as she recalls the memory. 

“I told you I didn’t have crow’s feet,” Jaskier says smugly, and Yennefer rolls her eyes at him.

“That’s what you’re worried about! No wonder you didn’t notice you hadn’t aged a day since we met.” Triss is barely holding back her laughter, seated on the couch beside Yennefer, just close enough to suggest the change in their relationship. 

Geralt, who has been sitting frozen next to Jaskier, grabs his chin and examines the corners of his eyes, as if he’s looking for a sign that they’re lying to him. Satisfied, he smiles, one of the most genuine that Jaskier has ever seen. 

“Guess you’re stuck with me,” Jaskier says with a wink. 

“Guess so,” Geralt agrees, and kisses him soundly. 

**Author's Note:**

> please visit me to yell into the void on [twitter](https://twitter.com/tentaclebowtie)


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